Still She Wished for Company
by Margaret Irwin
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Description
The story moves between the 1920s and the 1770s, following two heroines: 20th century Jan Challard, a London girl, and 18th century Juliana Clare, the youngest daughter of an aristocratic Berkshire family. Jan is independent and spirited, but leads a humdrum life, working in an office, and walks out with a very suitable young man. Juliana, at 17 years of age, is getting the upbringing of a young lady in the enormous family mansion, Chidleigh, and her life is devoid of excitement and event. show more The two heroines can see one another from time to time, momentarily, through some rent in the fabric of time, but never manage to meet and interact. Their lives converge as Juliana's world is turned upside down; her father dies and her notoriously wicked and mysterious brother, Lucian Clare, returns to take his position as head of the family.Lucian recognizes a supernatural power in Juliana, and uses this to reach out to Jan through the ages. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Still She Wished for Company is a strange, wonderful gem of a novel--written in 1924, it still reads remarkably fresh today. Jan is a working girl in modern (1920s) London, who frequently drifts into dreamland and acts as if her mind is in another world. She is obsessed with a man she saw in a portrait, and he becomes literaly "the man of her dreams". She goes off to Berkshire for a cottage vacation and some rest, only to find herself obsessed by the nearby manor house. Thus the prologue.
The bulk of the book is set in the 1770s, where Juliana lives in the manor amid her large extended family. Everything is shaken up when her scandalous rake of a brother arrives home. After she admits that she's seen the ghost of Edward VI on the estate, show more he makes her the object of special attention, treating her to study sessions in the library that resemble a combination of Pythia and Svengali. Soon she is seeing more and more of an oddly dressed girl and dreaming of a time when the estate is shut up and the nurse's cottage disappeared. This, and the fact that she rarely remembers what happens when she's closeted up with her brother begin to bother her, but surely her brother can only have the best of intentions, right? Because it soon turns out that he holds her fate in his hands.
The dreamy time travelling and wandering spirits, make Still She Wished for Company stand out from its contemporaries. The characterizations are strong, even among the supporting staff, and the world building, such as it is, is impressive. Recommended for anyone who likes a good story, especially one that sends a few chills of foreboding down your spine.
Note on my edition: For those who are easily annoyed by typos, "Duc", the French title of one of the supporting characters, is constantly misspelt throughout the book: first it is "dug" and for the rest of the book it is "due". I'm pretty sure that this happened when the book was digitized, and it's unfortunate that it wasn't caught in the publishing process, because it got old really fast. Oh, for an editor! show less
The bulk of the book is set in the 1770s, where Juliana lives in the manor amid her large extended family. Everything is shaken up when her scandalous rake of a brother arrives home. After she admits that she's seen the ghost of Edward VI on the estate, show more he makes her the object of special attention, treating her to study sessions in the library that resemble a combination of Pythia and Svengali. Soon she is seeing more and more of an oddly dressed girl and dreaming of a time when the estate is shut up and the nurse's cottage disappeared. This, and the fact that she rarely remembers what happens when she's closeted up with her brother begin to bother her, but surely her brother can only have the best of intentions, right? Because it soon turns out that he holds her fate in his hands.
The dreamy time travelling and wandering spirits, make Still She Wished for Company stand out from its contemporaries. The characterizations are strong, even among the supporting staff, and the world building, such as it is, is impressive. Recommended for anyone who likes a good story, especially one that sends a few chills of foreboding down your spine.
Note on my edition: For those who are easily annoyed by typos, "Duc", the French title of one of the supporting characters, is constantly misspelt throughout the book: first it is "dug" and for the rest of the book it is "due". I'm pretty sure that this happened when the book was digitized, and it's unfortunate that it wasn't caught in the publishing process, because it got old really fast. Oh, for an editor! show less
Charming meditation on string theory physics.
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Author Information
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Peacock Books (14)
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1924
- People/Characters
- Jan Challard; Juliana Clare; Lucian Clare, Lord Chidleigh
- Dedication
- Since there is none now left to remember her, my apologies for the liberties taken in this book are due only to JULIANA.
- First words
- Through the early summer dusk in Hyde Park, three children ran shouting down the hill and by the waterfall garden.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Faint shadows stole out before them, and she, looking down at the milky ground, saw that they were the shadows of a hooped skirt and a sword, of a bent head, ribbon at neck, and a head upturned to meet it, under a high-piled tower of hair.
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Statistics
- Members
- 73
- Popularity
- 430,921
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.09)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 12
