The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

Radio Drama Captures Spirit of Novel, 24 Jul 2001
When I had first read Devices and Desires I'll admit that I was slightly dissapointed with the ending. And yet even after two or three days I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was nothing like a Christie murder mystery and far from anything like Starling's Messiah.

I had so many questions with the book and yet I didn't want to re-read it again. Then I found the BBC recording at this site. I had been a long time fan of the BBC radio dramas and knew that the quality of the production would be worth it.

And since then I have listened to it on numerous occasions. And the radio drama not only captures the essence of the book but also answers all the questions I had before listening to it. And I've come to realize that the story may not have a "Hollywood" ending.. but has an ending that is more real than not.

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

Radio Drama Captures Spirit of Novel, 24 Jul 2001
When I had first read Devices and Desires I'll admit that I was slightly dissapointed with the ending. And yet even after two or three days I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was nothing like a Christie murder mystery and far from anything like Starling's Messiah.

I had so many questions with the book and yet I didn't want to re-read it again. Then I found the BBC recording at this site. I had been a long time fan of the BBC radio dramas and knew that the quality of the production would be worth it.

And since then I have listened to it on numerous occasions. And the radio drama not only captures the essence of the book but also answers all the questions I had before listening to it. And I've come to realize that the story may not have a "Hollywood" ending.. but has an ending that is more real than not.

Wonderful, 13 Dec 2002
I first came across E M Delafield in a combilation of sketches from the 1930s - and I then turned to her Provincial Lady series.
Words cannot describe the brilliance of these novels - this one (known to many as The Provincial Lady Goes Further) is unquestionably my favourite.

The first novel was clever, and in many ways her best, but the second has lost the tension of the first book. The last two, whilst good, rather lapse into autobiography and staidness in places.

This book is one of my favourite, and I'm very glad it has been brought back into print.

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

Radio Drama Captures Spirit of Novel, 24 Jul 2001
When I had first read Devices and Desires I'll admit that I was slightly dissapointed with the ending. And yet even after two or three days I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was nothing like a Christie murder mystery and far from anything like Starling's Messiah.

I had so many questions with the book and yet I didn't want to re-read it again. Then I found the BBC recording at this site. I had been a long time fan of the BBC radio dramas and knew that the quality of the production would be worth it.

And since then I have listened to it on numerous occasions. And the radio drama not only captures the essence of the book but also answers all the questions I had before listening to it. And I've come to realize that the story may not have a "Hollywood" ending.. but has an ending that is more real than not.

Wonderful, 13 Dec 2002
I first came across E M Delafield in a combilation of sketches from the 1930s - and I then turned to her Provincial Lady series.
Words cannot describe the brilliance of these novels - this one (known to many as The Provincial Lady Goes Further) is unquestionably my favourite.

The first novel was clever, and in many ways her best, but the second has lost the tension of the first book. The last two, whilst good, rather lapse into autobiography and staidness in places.

This book is one of my favourite, and I'm very glad it has been brought back into print.

Impressions of Stalin's Russia, 01 Aug 1999
Miss Delafield is one of the forgotten, feminine feminists of the inter-war years. Her 'Provincial Lady' fictional diaries gave light relief to the more solemn pages of Lady Rhondda's 'Time and Tide' magazine, reminding her readers that it was possible to worry about the hyacinth bulbs as well as the state of female emancipation. In the mid 1930s she accepted a commisssion to travel the Soviet Union. This book tells the tale, from the awfulness of her travelling companions, a collection of idealists, forward thinkers, bores and opportunists, to the truly committed and hard working community she found on a collective farm deep in the Ukraine. She managed to travel surprisingly widely at a time when the 1917 Revolution was still a fresh memory and westerners a source of deep suspicion. Ever wry, about her fellow travellers and about herself, but always confident, Miss Delafield tells a good story, and makes a good case for never leaving home without flea-powder. The publicists will have confused prospective readers with the title and the dustjacket; this is NOT a 'Provincial Lady' fiction but an autobiographical travel book. And the editing, presumably by the 1930s publishers, makes the tale jump from London to collective farm to the start of the journey, but nonetheless this is a little gem. It deserves to be read by students of 1930s social history, by admirers of the light writers of the day, and by anyone who is surprised by the continuing literalness of Russian hotel desk clerks.

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

Radio Drama Captures Spirit of Novel, 24 Jul 2001
When I had first read Devices and Desires I'll admit that I was slightly dissapointed with the ending. And yet even after two or three days I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was nothing like a Christie murder mystery and far from anything like Starling's Messiah.

I had so many questions with the book and yet I didn't want to re-read it again. Then I found the BBC recording at this site. I had been a long time fan of the BBC radio dramas and knew that the quality of the production would be worth it.

And since then I have listened to it on numerous occasions. And the radio drama not only captures the essence of the book but also answers all the questions I had before listening to it. And I've come to realize that the story may not have a "Hollywood" ending.. but has an ending that is more real than not.

Wonderful, 13 Dec 2002
I first came across E M Delafield in a combilation of sketches from the 1930s - and I then turned to her Provincial Lady series.
Words cannot describe the brilliance of these novels - this one (known to many as The Provincial Lady Goes Further) is unquestionably my favourite.

The first novel was clever, and in many ways her best, but the second has lost the tension of the first book. The last two, whilst good, rather lapse into autobiography and staidness in places.

This book is one of my favourite, and I'm very glad it has been brought back into print.

Impressions of Stalin's Russia, 01 Aug 1999
Miss Delafield is one of the forgotten, feminine feminists of the inter-war years. Her 'Provincial Lady' fictional diaries gave light relief to the more solemn pages of Lady Rhondda's 'Time and Tide' magazine, reminding her readers that it was possible to worry about the hyacinth bulbs as well as the state of female emancipation. In the mid 1930s she accepted a commisssion to travel the Soviet Union. This book tells the tale, from the awfulness of her travelling companions, a collection of idealists, forward thinkers, bores and opportunists, to the truly committed and hard working community she found on a collective farm deep in the Ukraine. She managed to travel surprisingly widely at a time when the 1917 Revolution was still a fresh memory and westerners a source of deep suspicion. Ever wry, about her fellow travellers and about herself, but always confident, Miss Delafield tells a good story, and makes a good case for never leaving home without flea-powder. The publicists will have confused prospective readers with the title and the dustjacket; this is NOT a 'Provincial Lady' fiction but an autobiographical travel book. And the editing, presumably by the 1930s publishers, makes the tale jump from London to collective farm to the start of the journey, but nonetheless this is a little gem. It deserves to be read by students of 1930s social history, by admirers of the light writers of the day, and by anyone who is surprised by the continuing literalness of Russian hotel desk clerks.

A thoughtful and absorbing novel, 01 Aug 2007
This novel describes the fate of a girl brought up at the turn of the last century, a girl brought up with the assumption that she would make a 'good' marriage and find her fulfilment as a wife and mother. The heroine, Alex, fails to make such a marriage, and E M Delafield explores with devastating insight the 'consequences' for her of that failure. On one hand, the novel is a deeply-felt examination of Alex's predicament, her thoughts and feelings; on the other hand, Delafield takes her story as the starting point for a strong critique of the Victorian family. In 'Consequences' Delafield explores the predicament of those Victorian women forced to endure the 'marriage market'. It is a very different novel from her 'Diary of a Provincial Lady' and yet it deals, ultimately, with the same issues. The provincial lady is a wife and mother - she would seem to have succeeded in the marriage market where Alex has failed - and yet Delafield shows us that the two characters are not so far apart as might be imagined. Both are asked to conform to the rules and rituals governing women's behaviour at the time; the provincial lady capitulates to great comic effect, putting up with a husband who merely grunts behind his newspaper and the tedium of running a large and busy home. Alex would seem to have escaped that, and yet her fate is even worse. This is not a particularly cheerful novel, but then, it's not supposed to be. What it is, is a poignant and thoughtful examination of a young girl's decisions and desperation, and this is why it is well worth reading.

Depressing, 11 Jul 2005
I read this because the author's 'Diary of a Provincial Lady' a comic gem, is one of my favourite books. However, this could not be further away in tone. It gets one star because the writer, as always, writes well, but I have never read a more depressing book. It is about about a woman who cannot cope with life. It is miserable from beginning to end, and I can well see why it went out of print. Don't read unless you are feeling emotionally robust!

Not so Provincial, 23 Oct 2004
EM Delafield is best known for her excellent Diary of a Provincial Lady and the rest of the series - but this book, one of her earlier ones, shows that Delafield can write deeply moving books as well as hilarious ones. Alex is a perfectly rounded character, one who the reader can understand, whilst also understanding why her family can't deal properly with her. She joins a convent as a punishment, and Delafield's own experience as a nun shape her narrative with wonderful insight.

Every character in this book is well drawn - there are no stereotypes included only to further the plot. The motivations of each, especially her sister and brother later in the novel, are believably extracted, and the ending leaves one gasping at the sheer brilliance and captivation of what has preceded it.

Uncomprehending Alex, 01 Jan 2001
E M Delafield is best known for her Provincial lady series, light, amusing books about an Englishwoman's life between the wars. Consequences is the story of Alex Clare, an awkward, emotional child who grows up into a young woman who doesn't fit in anywhere, and is continually made aware of her failure. Alex is suppressed by almost everyone in her life, her nanny, her parents and siblings, her schoolfriends and the nuns at the convent where she eventually retreats until she realises that the convent is just another mistake. Alex doesn't fit in, and I think everyone can empathise with her at some level. She can't understand why she doesn't belong, and no-one she meets has the ability or the desire to help her. I hope I haven't made the novel sound too bleak, although Alex's unrelenting ability to do and say the wrong thing in almost every situation becomes quite distressing. Delafield writes with a passionate anger about the limited education and prospects for girls in the late Victorian period, and I was ultimately moved by Alex's fate. Persephone are to be congratulated for rescuing yet another lost classic from oblivion. I'd love to read more of Delafield's fiction.

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!

Radio Drama Captures Spirit of Novel, 24 Jul 2001
When I had first read Devices and Desires I'll admit that I was slightly dissapointed with the ending. And yet even after two or three days I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was nothing like a Christie murder mystery and far from anything like Starling's Messiah.

I had so many questions with the book and yet I didn't want to re-read it again. Then I found the BBC recording at this site. I had been a long time fan of the BBC radio dramas and knew that the quality of the production would be worth it.

And since then I have listened to it on numerous occasions. And the radio drama not only captures the essence of the book but also answers all the questions I had before listening to it. And I've come to realize that the story may not have a "Hollywood" ending.. but has an ending that is more real than not.

Wonderful, 13 Dec 2002
I first came across E M Delafield in a combilation of sketches from the 1930s - and I then turned to her Provincial Lady series.
Words cannot describe the brilliance of these novels - this one (known to many as The Provincial Lady Goes Further) is unquestionably my favourite.

The first novel was clever, and in many ways her best, but the second has lost the tension of the first book. The last two, whilst good, rather lapse into autobiography and staidness in places.

This book is one of my favourite, and I'm very glad it has been brought back into print.

Impressions of Stalin's Russia, 01 Aug 1999
Miss Delafield is one of the forgotten, feminine feminists of the inter-war years. Her 'Provincial Lady' fictional diaries gave light relief to the more solemn pages of Lady Rhondda's 'Time and Tide' magazine, reminding her readers that it was possible to worry about the hyacinth bulbs as well as the state of female emancipation. In the mid 1930s she accepted a commisssion to travel the Soviet Union. This book tells the tale, from the awfulness of her travelling companions, a collection of idealists, forward thinkers, bores and opportunists, to the truly committed and hard working community she found on a collective farm deep in the Ukraine. She managed to travel surprisingly widely at a time when the 1917 Revolution was still a fresh memory and westerners a source of deep suspicion. Ever wry, about her fellow travellers and about herself, but always confident, Miss Delafield tells a good story, and makes a good case for never leaving home without flea-powder. The publicists will have confused prospective readers with the title and the dustjacket; this is NOT a 'Provincial Lady' fiction but an autobiographical travel book. And the editing, presumably by the 1930s publishers, makes the tale jump from London to collective farm to the start of the journey, but nonetheless this is a little gem. It deserves to be read by students of 1930s social history, by admirers of the light writers of the day, and by anyone who is surprised by the continuing literalness of Russian hotel desk clerks.

A thoughtful and absorbing novel, 01 Aug 2007
This novel describes the fate of a girl brought up at the turn of the last century, a girl brought up with the assumption that she would make a 'good' marriage and find her fulfilment as a wife and mother. The heroine, Alex, fails to make such a marriage, and E M Delafield explores with devastating insight the 'consequences' for her of that failure. On one hand, the novel is a deeply-felt examination of Alex's predicament, her thoughts and feelings; on the other hand, Delafield takes her story as the starting point for a strong critique of the Victorian family. In 'Consequences' Delafield explores the predicament of those Victorian women forced to endure the 'marriage market'. It is a very different novel from her 'Diary of a Provincial Lady' and yet it deals, ultimately, with the same issues. The provincial lady is a wife and mother - she would seem to have succeeded in the marriage market where Alex has failed - and yet Delafield shows us that the two characters are not so far apart as might be imagined. Both are asked to conform to the rules and rituals governing women's behaviour at the time; the provincial lady capitulates to great comic effect, putting up with a husband who merely grunts behind his newspaper and the tedium of running a large and busy home. Alex would seem to have escaped that, and yet her fate is even worse. This is not a particularly cheerful novel, but then, it's not supposed to be. What it is, is a poignant and thoughtful examination of a young girl's decisions and desperation, and this is why it is well worth reading.

Depressing, 11 Jul 2005
I read this because the author's 'Diary of a Provincial Lady' a comic gem, is one of my favourite books. However, this could not be further away in tone. It gets one star because the writer, as always, writes well, but I have never read a more depressing book. It is about about a woman who cannot cope with life. It is miserable from beginning to end, and I can well see why it went out of print. Don't read unless you are feeling emotionally robust!

Not so Provincial, 23 Oct 2004
EM Delafield is best known for her excellent Diary of a Provincial Lady and the rest of the series - but this book, one of her earlier ones, shows that Delafield can write deeply moving books as well as hilarious ones. Alex is a perfectly rounded character, one who the reader can understand, whilst also understanding why her family can't deal properly with her. She joins a convent as a punishment, and Delafield's own experience as a nun shape her narrative with wonderful insight.

Every character in this book is well drawn - there are no stereotypes included only to further the plot. The motivations of each, especially her sister and brother later in the novel, are believably extracted, and the ending leaves one gasping at the sheer brilliance and captivation of what has preceded it.

Uncomprehending Alex, 01 Jan 2001
E M Delafield is best known for her Provincial lady series, light, amusing books about an Englishwoman's life between the wars. Consequences is the story of Alex Clare, an awkward, emotional child who grows up into a young woman who doesn't fit in anywhere, and is continually made aware of her failure. Alex is suppressed by almost everyone in her life, her nanny, her parents and siblings, her schoolfriends and the nuns at the convent where she eventually retreats until she realises that the convent is just another mistake. Alex doesn't fit in, and I think everyone can empathise with her at some level. She can't understand why she doesn't belong, and no-one she meets has the ability or the desire to help her. I hope I haven't made the novel sound too bleak, although Alex's unrelenting ability to do and say the wrong thing in almost every situation becomes quite distressing. Delafield writes with a passionate anger about the limited education and prospects for girls in the late Victorian period, and I was ultimately moved by Alex's fate. Persephone are to be congratulated for rescuing yet another lost classic from oblivion. I'd love to read more of Delafield's fiction.

The diary of a woman who couldn't wipe her own nose..., 24 Mar 2008
The 4 star rating is an error on my part. This book barely rates a one star. When I read this book as a teenager I think I found it mildly amusing. Now, as an adult with children, work, worries etc, it's just irritating. The diarist is witty in a droll an complacent pre-war way that finds humour in the travails of dealing with 'useless' domestics. The main character oozes the preternatural arrogance of somebody who has little practical ability of any sort and doesn't care because she's used to dumping on other people. Anyhooo..... the book reminds me of the TV show 'Butterflies' (remember that?) which I also hated - well, i despised the drippiness of the useless main character. I'd recommend Barbara Pym for a more poignant interpretation of the arid lives of middle class ladies in the mid 20th century.

Read it again and again - and still love it!, 14 Jul 2007
"Robert says nothing". But what was he thinking?

The Provincial Lady fascinates me: her way of life, her comments about the social standards predominating before the last war. It could all be rather boring but somehow the way she talks isn't. And I catch something different everytime I re-read the book or listen to the audio cassettes.

There were still shades of the the PL's world left during my childhood in the early 1950's: the baker and grocer still called; my Mum wrote and posted copious notes to companies - ordering, complaining, thanking - as well as writing regular long letters to relatives and friends (she rarely used the phone as it was too expensive); the dreaded visit to the bank manager when finances got tight; everything paid cash and careful records kept of income and expednditure which had to balance every week.
My father was very much head of the house and everything was referred to him - unlike Robert though, he said a good deal, most of it critical.

I would recommend the Provincial Lady books to my future daughter-in-law as a good read, and I hope she would find them just as fascinating. The humour and the quality of the writing must surely appeal to any generation.



Wickedly funny!!!!, 01 Feb 2007
If you buy only one book in your life, make sure its this one. I have read five times (something I never usually do) and always find something in it that I missed previously. It makes me belly laugh out loud every time. Full of truly wonderful characters from Our Vicars Wife to Helen Wheels the cat. It's a real treasure and one that I will take with me through life.

social and feminist history in a humorous package, 18 Apr 2006
This diary, plus the later ones in which the author visits America and then works in a forces' canteen in wartime, is a fascinating glimpse of what life was like for a middle class woman in the 1930s. My favourite snippet, from ...Goes Further, is when she visits Boston and at a party asks a young man if he thinks television will ever become a part of everyday life. He looks at her as if she were mad!
The humour is intelligent and infectious and the narrative voice very real despite the 'diary' style.
Don't miss it!

I just love this book......, 19 Feb 2004
warm, witty and although it was originally published in the thirties I can still relate to the main character much more than I can relate to Bridget Jones. Some great episodes, especially with the trips to the pawnbroker! A really good bedtime book as it can be read in small chunks, and isn't too demanding of tired brains!