[List of books read in 1943, in diary for 1943]:
'The Farthing Spinster; Guy Mannering; Whereas I was Blind; And So to Bath; The Story of San Michele; Attack Alarm; The Murders in Praed Street; Lover's Meeting; The Secret Battle; Witch Wood; MD - Doctor of Murder; Murder at the Keyhole; That Girl Ginger; Ten Minute Alibi; Diary of a District Officer; Tarzan the Untamed; Peter Abelard; Pip; Pied Piper; A Man Lay Dead; Random Harvest; Madame Curie; Stalky and Co; Bellarion; Down the Garden Path; The Three Musketeers vol 1; The House in Cornwall; A Tall Ship; The Two Saplings; Farewell Victoria; Quinneys; House of Terror; Penguin Parade 4; Guy Mannering[presumably a re-reading]; The Man Born to be King; Casterton Papers; Old Saint Paul's; The Moon is Down; 1066 and all That; My Brother Jonathon; Gulliver's Travels; Ensign Knightley; Men Against Death; Fame is the Spur; Gone with the Wind; Mesmer; First Nights; The Hound of the Baskervilles; Little Gidding; Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; The Amazing Theatre; The Pleasure of Your Company; Dandelion Days; Humour and Fantasy; Juno and the Paycock; The Beautiful Years; Teach Yourself to Think; Salar the Salmon; The Cathedral; The Mysterious Mr I; The Picts and the Martyrs; The Dream of Fair Women; The Star-born; Three Short Stories; A Thatched Roof; The Surgeon's Log; The Healing Knife; Nine Ghosts; While Rome Burns; The Star Spangled Manner; The Day Must Dawn; The Tower of London; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Old Man's Birthday; A little Princess; Ego 5; The Lighter Side of School Life; Kidnapped; The Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Ballet Lover's Notebook; Lorna Doone; The Plays of JM Barrie; Jane Eyre; I'll Leave it to You; Henry Fifth; Longer Poems; Antony and Cleopatra; The Man in Grey; The House in Dormer Forest; The Writing of English; Miss Mapp; The Song of Bernadette; Happy and Glorious; Sixty Poems; The Birth of Romance; The Comedy of Life; Some Little Tales; Dream Days; Royal Flush.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'Didn't do much work as was reading "The Killer and the Slain", which I don't like much as it's very sordid and morbid.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[List of books read during 1944]:
'The Specialist; All This and Heaven Too; Antony; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Roper's Row; Tom Brown's Schooldays; Life's a Circus; The Keys of the Kingdom; Two Survived; Hamlet; King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse; The Snow Goose; Gerald; Early Stages; Cross Creek; Footnotes to the Ballet; The Great Ship; Hungry Hill; Hiawatha; Captain Blood; Scaramouche; Heartbreak House; Fortune's Fool; Fifth Form at St Dominic's; Cold Comfort Farm; The Lost King; The count of Monte Cristo; Diary of a Provincial Lady; Frenchman's Creek; Song of Bernadette; Romeo and Juliet; Rebecca; The Surgeon's Destiny; The Killer and the Slain; Anna; King Solomon's Mines; The Black Moth; Have His Carcase; Peacock Pie; Alice in Wonderland; The Citadel; Good Companions; Our Hearts were Young and Gay; Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man; The Healing Knife; First Year Out; Saint Joan; Stars Look Down; Bridge of San Luis Rey; Rogue Herries; Caesar and Cleopatra; Xmas at Cold Comfort Farm; Dark Lady of the Sonnets; The Velvet Deer; Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book; A Christmas Carol; Craft of Comedy; As You Like It; Lottie Dundass; Plays of John Galsworthy; Provincial Lady in America; She Shanties; Peter Abelard; Actor, Soldier, Poet; The Best of Lamb; Some Essay of Elia; Poems, Plays etc; The White Cliffs; Three Men in a Boat; Confessions of an Opium Eater; In Search of England; Wuthering Heights; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Poems of Contemporary Women; Crime at the Club; Quality Street; Villette; Major Barbara; Pygmalion; You Never Can Tell; King John; Doctor's Dilemma'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 13 May 1910: 'I "read," in a manner, "Maradick" -- [...] Your book has a great sense and love of life -- but seems to me very nearly as irreflectively juvenile as the Trojans [ie "The Trojan Horse" (1909), Walpole's previous (and first) novel] [...] Also the whole thing is a monument to the abuse of voluminous dialogue [...] And yet it's all so loveable'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 15 April 1911: 'I congratulate you ever so gladly on Mr. Perrin -- I think the book represents a very marked advance upon its predecessors [...] To appreciate is to appropriate, and it is only by criticism that I can make a thing in which I find myself interested at all [italics]my own[end italics]. [...] I really and very charmedly made your book very [italics]much[end italics] my own.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Book
Henry James to Hugh Walpole, 13 October 1911: 'I have just been reading the "Standard" [containing Walpole's review of James's "The Outcry"] at breakfast, and I am touched, I am [italics]melted[end italics], by the charming gallantry and magnanimity of it'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Newspaper
[List of books read in 1945]:
'For Whom the Bell Tolls; Henry Brocken; Doctor Faustus; Life of the Bee; The Screwtape Letters; Modern Short Stories; Letters of People in Love; Men and Women; The Headmistress; The People's Government; The Art of Writing; Speech and Sound; Background to the Life of Christ; The House of Prayer; Eleanor in the Fifth; Adventures of Jig and Co; Rendezvous with Fear; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; The Poetry of James Elroy Flecker; Escape; Hangman's Holiday; The Body Behind the Bar; Strong Poison; The Critic; Magic Lantern; Listening Valley; Emma; Dragon Seed; Crowthers of Bankdam; The Rat Trap; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; The Spanish House; O the Brave Music; The Light that Failed; Ghosts; The Antiquary; The Knightes Tale; Luria; The Best of Hazlitt; Pericles; The Rivals; Hamlet [again]; Antony and Cleopatra [again]; Knightes Tale [again]; Julius Caesar; Merchant of Venice; The Critic; The Rivals; Cymbeline; Adventures of a Young Soldier in Search of a Better World; The Nine Tailors; The Conquered; The Professor; Peter Abelard; Then They Pulled Down the Blind; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Portrait of a Man with Red Hair; Winnie-the-Pooh; The House at Pooh Corner; Mrs Parkinson; Adele and Co; Frossia; Cluny Brown; Four Gardens; The World is Square; Being Met Together; Best Sporting Stories; Selected stories by Q; And Five were Foolish; Campaspe; Endimion [by Lyly]; Midas; Dr Faustus [again]; Twelfth Night; Mrs Warrent's Proffession [sic]; The Spanish Tragedy; The Jew of Malta; Galathea; Tambourlaine; Sun is my Undoing; By Greta Bridge; Utopia; England, their England; The Art of Poetry; Old Wives Tale; The Reader is Warned; Long, Long Ago; Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay; James IV of Scotland; The Handsome Langleys; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Death Comes for the Archbishop; The Island of Youth; I'll Say She Does; The Forsyte Saga; In Youth is Pleasure; On Forsyte Change; Genesis to Nehemiah.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'You shock me. Not by liking "The Way of all Flesh", but by liking "The Devil?s Garden" and "Fortitude" . . . . it is not excusable to lose your head about badness or mediocrity. About "The Devil?s Garden" there is nothing to be said, it simply does not exist. "Fortitude" is by a man who has written one real book ("Mr, Perrin & Mr. Traill") , but "Fortitude" is undoubtedly a failure.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'You shock me. Not by liking "The Way of all Flesh", but by liking "The Devil?s Garden" and "Fortitude" . . . . it is not excusable to lose your head about badness or mediocrity. About "The Devil?s Garden" there is nothing to be said, it simply does not exist. "Fortitude" is by a man who has written one real book ("Mr, Perrin & Mr. Traill") , but "Fortitude" is undoubtedly a failure.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Tuesday 1 September 1931: 'And so a few days of bed & headache & overpowering sleep, sleep descending inexorable as I tried to read Judith Paris, then Ivanhoe. A note on Judith Paris: its a London museum book. Hugh bouncing with spurious enthusiasm -- a collection of keepsakes bright beads -- unrelated. Why? No central feeling anywhere [...] All a trivial litter of bright objects to be swept up.
'Scott: a note. A pageant. And I know the man [Locksley] (I forget his name) will hit the mark. So I'm not excited. Almost incredible that my father [Leslie Stephen, in Hours in a Library vol. 1 p.158] shd. have taken this scene seriously. But I think some roots. A perfectly desire surely to amuse, now & then ruffled (but oh how seldom!) by some raid from the sub-conscious -- only in the humour tho. Rowena, Rebecca, hairdressers ornaments -- Madame Tussaud sham jewels [...] But I think I trust him & like him better than Hugh. Question of morality. That we are all moralists; with a temporary standard.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'Many thanks for the inscribed D.F. ['The Dark Forest'] Overwork has delayed me much with it. I thought the opening rather vague and lacking in direction ? due no doubt to "recency" (a new word) of the impressions. However the book gathers force. By the time it finishes it is the best book of yours since Mr P & Mr. T.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I don’t think I have concealed from you my opinion that "Fortitude" and "The Duchess" [The Duchess of Wrexe] are not on a level with the other three. [Mr Perrin and Mr Traill (1911), The Dark Forest (1916) and The Green Mirror (1918)]. But this unlevelness does not worry me in the least. It is constantly found in the greatest novelists, and is natural & inevitable.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'I don’t think I have concealed from you my opinion that "Fortitude" and "The Duchess" [The Duchess of Wrexe] are not on a level with the other three. [Mr Perrin and Mr Traill (1911), The Dark Forest (1916) and The Green Mirror (1918)]. But this unlevelness does not worry me in the least. It is constantly found in the greatest novelists, and is natural & inevitable.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Hugh Walpole, 19 July 1908:
'I can say without preamble that it's good -- the theme is ample and fills the book properly, the development holds one [...] The interest does persist to the very end. I did put the book down, because I went to bed, but I finished it first thing in the morning. You ought to get it taken all right [comments further]'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown
'For a day or two after the raid I felt curiously lighthearted; like the hero of Hugh Walpole's "The Dark Forest" - one of the few novels I had read that winter - "I was happy ... with a strange exultation that was unlike any emotion that I had known before. It was ... something of the happiness of danger or pain that one has dreaded and finds, in actual truth, give way before one's resolution."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'John Buchan was there, brisk and unpretentious, and the bluff and cordial Hugh Walpole, over whose new novel, "The Cathedral", I was to laugh and weep so rapturously in the next few months.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'It appeareth to me that you have attempted the impossible in 'The Secret City'. Therefore be not surprised if I think you have not achieved the same.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'It seems to me that I have to write to you in the same nagging strain as I do to Wells, In spite of my brotherly admonitions & my fatherly threats apropos of previous books there are at least as many grammatical slips in this one as in any. . . . Such, imperfectly, respectfully, & fragmentarily are my views about this history which you have so affectionately dedicated to the aged one. There are lots of questions I want to ask you about it. Will you dine Thursday 21st?'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Your novel ['The Young Enchanted'] shows once more your most genuine and even devilish gift for narrative. By God you can tell a story! Also the first half of the book is full of charming things, excellent bits of observation and fancy, new gleams of light on the world, But, also by God, I will not hide from you my conviction that the book does not improve as it goes on . . . . The mere details of writing I think are better than in 'The Captives'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
I wrote a fatherly letter to Hughie & told him the error of his ways & also that I didn’t like 'The Cath'. well enough even to say anything about it to him at all. . .
I had the happy idea of reading the McLauchlin trial, one of the most captivating of the Hodge series, & found it full of small useful ‘sordid’ details of daily life in a small house. The old grandfather (87) trying to get into bed with the servant, & refusing to go away when she wanted to make water (after he’d tried to murder her). A1 stuff. . . .
Look here, I’ve exchanged books with W. B. Maxwell, & read 'Spinster of This Parish'. The opening of it is a masterly exposition of narrative - the sort of thing Hughie would like to do but can’t.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'We [Hilary and schoolfellows] used to recommend things to each other a lot, and we had crazes – Georgette Heyer, D.K. Broster, Cronin, Axel Munter, Hugh Walpole. And then there were F Brett Young and my own particular favourite Helen Waddell, Peter Abelard – I read that when I was about 15 and I read it almost every year for about 6 years afterwards. I loved it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'The subject for the evening Hugh Walpole was then taken F.E. Pollard giving us a brief outline of the writer's life. Mrs Robson read from "Fortitude" & Mrs Pollard from "The Secret City". After supper the Secretary attempted some analysis & estimate of Walpoles work which was followed by some discussion. Mr Stansfield read from "Jeremy" & in conclusion Mr Robson read from "The Cathedral". An interesting evening about work which both attracts & repels. The man perhaps just missing greatness but frequently gripping us by powerful intriguing work.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Robson Print: Book
'The subject for the evening Hugh Walpole was then taken F.E. Pollard giving us a brief outline of the writer's life. Mrs Robson read from "Fortitude" & Mrs Pollard from "The Secret City". After supper the Secretary attempted some analysis & estimate of Walpoles work which was followed by some discussion. Mr Stansfield read from "Jeremy" & in conclusion Mr Robson read from "The Cathedral". An interesting evening about work which both attracts & repels. The man perhaps just missing greatness but frequently gripping us by powerful intriguing work.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Pollard Print: Book
'The subject for the evening Hugh Walpole was then taken F.E. Pollard giving us a brief outline of the writer's life. Mrs Robson read from "Fortitude" & Mrs Pollard from "The Secret City". After supper the Secretary attempted some analysis & estimate of Walpoles work which was followed by some discussion. Mr Stansfield read from "Jeremy" & in conclusion Mr Robson read from "The Cathedral". An interesting evening about work which both attracts & repels. The man perhaps just missing greatness but frequently gripping us by powerful intriguing work.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
'The subject for the evening Hugh Walpole was then taken F.E. Pollard giving us a brief outline of the writer's life. Mrs Robson read from "Fortitude" & Mrs Pollard from "The Secret City". After supper the Secretary attempted some analysis & estimate of Walpoles work which was followed by some discussion. Mr Stansfield read from "Jeremy" & in conclusion Mr Robson read from "The Cathedral". An interesting evening about work which both attracts & repels. The man perhaps just missing greatness but frequently gripping us by powerful intriguing work.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'The subject for the evening Hugh Walpole was then taken F.E. Pollard giving us a brief outline of the writer's life. Mrs Robson read from "Fortitude" & Mrs Pollard from "The Secret City". After supper the Secretary attempted some analysis & estimate of Walpoles work which was followed by some discussion. Mr Stansfield read from "Jeremy" & in conclusion Mr Robson read from "The Cathedral". An interesting evening about work which both attracts & repels. The man perhaps just missing greatness but frequently gripping us by powerful intriguing work.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith Print: Book
'"The Green Mirror" reached me alright.[...] I didn't write to you about it as I expected almost every day to have you here for a talk about that and other things.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I started reading my inscribed copy [of "Mr Perrin and Mr Traill"] straight away. How well (and freshly) all this is done!' [Hence follow four more lines of appreciative comment.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'This is only to tell you that I have read the book.'
[Hence follow six lines of praise.]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'And first of all my tender thanks for the copy of the limited edition [...]. The reading of it was an absorbing experience.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
Meeting held at Eynsham, Shinfield Rd., 20.XII.33.
E. Dorothy Brain in the chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. Schoolmasters in Literature were portrayed by a series of readings from biography and
fiction. There were ten in all and they reflected the various estimation in which these beings
are held, and were held generations ago. In spite of the dullness, the jealousy and the morbid
introspection that characterize the assistant, the profession is in part redeemed by the haloes
that flicker around its heads - generally, it must be admitted, very much in retrospect.
After all, would other professions fare much better?
We are certainly indebted to the committee who prepared the readings, and regret that
Reginald Robson felt it necessary to omit the one he had allotted to himself.
The readings were given in this order.
1. From Roger Ascham V. W. Alexander
2. [From] Westward Ho H. R. Smith
3. [From] Essays of Elia Janet Rawlings
4. [From] T. E. Brown's Clifton Celia Burrow
6. [From] Stalky & Co G. H. S. Burrow
5. [From] Life of Frederick Andrews Mary Robson
7. [From] Vanity Fair S. A. Reynolds
8. [From] Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill Dorothy Brain
9. [From] Jeremy at Crale E. B. Castle
10. [From] Rugby Chapel F. E. Pollard
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Brain Print: Book
Meeting held at Eynsham, Shinfield Rd., 20.XII.33.
E. Dorothy Brain in the chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved
[...]
7. Schoolmasters in Literature were portrayed by a series of readings from biography and
fiction. There were ten in all and they reflected the various estimation in which these beings
are held, and were held generations ago. In spite of the dullness, the jealousy and the morbid
introspection that characterize the assistant, the profession is in part redeemed by the haloes
that flicker around its heads - generally, it must be admitted, very much in retrospect.
After all, would other professions fare much better?
We are certainly indebted to the committee who prepared the readings, and regret that
Reginald Robson felt it necessary to omit the one he had allotted to himself.
The readings were given in this order.
1. From Roger Ascham V. W. Alexander
2. [From] Westward Ho H. R. Smith
3. [From] Essays of Elia Janet Rawlings
4. [From] T. E. Brown's Clifton Celia Burrow
6. [From] Stalky & Co G. H. S. Burrow
5. [From] Life of Frederick Andrews Mary Robson
7. [From] Vanity Fair S. A. Reynolds
8. [From] Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill Dorothy Brain
9. [From] Jeremy at Crale E. B. Castle
10. [From] Rugby Chapel F. E. Pollard
'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edgar Castle Print: Book
