[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
'Read "Have His Carcase". Will be the last fiction I'll read at weekends till after exams, worse luck. Am beginning revision to-morrow.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I read "Hangman's Holiday" with great enjoyment.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I read "Strong Poison" all day and enjoyed it thoroughly.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'I read "Nine Tailors" all pm although I'd promised myself I'd work at night. But it was a lovely evening and I lay in a secluded corner of the garden on my rug and although there was a high wind in the trees I was beautifully sheltered and warm. No doubt I shall regret not working.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
'"Nine Tailors" all evening.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
[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
'F 25 C is holding a slim book (looks new), approximate size 81/2" x 51/2", yellow jacket cover, title "Man Born to be King" by Dorothy Sayers. She does not open the book while the train is stationary, but once it starts she opens it at the first page and begins to read. Time take to read page 3, just under the minute. At Wood Lane she looks up for the first time, and her gaze rests on F 35 C, knitting, but she soon resumes reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue 4th September 1943
F. E. Pollard in the chair.
1. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
[...]
6. Edith Smith opened the evening of miscellaneous readings by reading part of a
short story “The Man with No Face” by Dorothy Sayers. She left the murder
mystery tantalizingly unsolved, but gave us a clever and amusing picture of the
occupants rightful and encroaching of a 1st-class railway carriage.
7. Mary Stansfield read from a collection of letters written by Freya Stark entitled
“Letters from Syria”. These were written some years ago in an atmosphere of
peace & tranquility. A particularly beautiful description of the writer’s first sight of
the Greek Islands recalled to F. E. Pollard his voyage there with Charles
Stansfield, about which he gave us some interesting and amusing reminiscences.
8. Arnold Joselin Read Boswells account of his first meeting with Johnson and then
“My Streatham Visit” by Frances Burney in which she describes meeting Johnson at
Thrale Hall and records some of the conversation at the dinner table.
9. [...] we listened to F. E. Pollard reading about “The Functional Alternative” from
a pamphlet published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs entitled “A
Working Peace System” by David Mitrany. The author suggests that in Post-War
Europe we should pursue a line of action similar to that adopted by President
Roosevelt in America in 1932/33. This started a lively discussion during which it
became apparent that federal union does not function in the Pollard family.
10. Reverting to more tranquil times Howard Smith read from André Maurois’ “Life
of Disraeli”. This led to the suggestion that Parliamentary speeches of today might
be improved if they contained more personal venom & we were assured that
Eleanor Rathbone is doing her best to liven things up.
11. Muriel Stevens read from The Autobiography of a Chinese Girl” by Hsieh Ping-
Ying. This proved to be a suitably soothing and uncontroversial ending to a most
varied and interesting evening.
[signed as a true record by] Howard R. Smith
6/10/1943 [at the club meeting held at Frensham: see Minute Book, p. 161]
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith B. Smith Print: Book