Apr. 19th, 2009

feather_ghyll: Girl reading a book that is resting on her knees (Default)
I'm currently dipping in and out of The Big Book of School Stories for Girls, edited by Mrs Herbert Strand and published by Humphrey Milford - the Oxford University Press. I've never been one to buy annuals and what-do-you-call-thems...anthologies? I prefer girls own stories in longer form, on the whole, and here's always the possibility of stories told in cartoon, which I'm not fussed about. However, it's not too bad, some of the stories have been amusing. The was a Dimsie story 'All Fools Day' (I don't know if it was written specially for this collection or not). It wasn't the pranks that Puck and co came up with so much as their reasoning.

I also love the illustrations, which seem to have been done by a variety of contributors. I forgot to mention when reviewing Torley Grange that while I appreciate Girls Gone By's habit of using the original art work, I didn't much like the cover. This will show my very limited appreciation of art, but I'm not sure that drawing schoolgirls as influenced by Edvard Munch's Scream with a jaundiced tinge, when you're not going for an Addams Family vibe is particularly attractive.

Anyhow, here are a couple of links that I've collected, mainly from trying to find information out about the writers I've recently been reading. I discovered (it must have been stated in the intro, but didn't sink in) that Torley Grange was Corutney's first book, which explains a few things and is rather impressive.

The University of Reading has her papers, there's a short bio here.

And this is an in-depth biographical article on Evelyn Smith by Hilary Clare for Folly magazine.

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