Press Coverage Spring 2005

‘Amid the thousands of new novels that come out every year, there must be room for some revivals,’ said Nicholas Clee in the Guardian. ‘These are likely, if chosen by people of taste and discernment, to be better than at least 90% of the new stuff. Such a discerning publisher is Persephone Books... Ruby Ferguson’s 1937 novel Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary is a curious, affecting confection of high Scots romance and social realism. You may find rather syrupy the early chapters, in which Lady Rose enjoys an idyllic upbringing on a grand Scottish estate in the 1860s and 70s, but stay with it: you’ll come to see that this is a romantic novel that does not deny the inequalities of Victorian mores or the shattering of illusions that the 20th century will bring.’

And Susie Maguire commented in the Glasgow Herald’s ‘Book of the Moment’ column that Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary ‘is written in a style which fits somewhere between the witty satire of Susan Ferrier’s Marriage (1818) and the innocent gaiety of Daisy Ashford’s The Young Visiters (1919). The novel so captivated the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, that she invited the author to dine at Buckingham Palace.’ ‘Perhaps she was moved by Ruby Ferguson’s encomium of all things Scottish,’ said Matthew Dennison in the Spectator; ‘perhaps the novel’s lush unabashed romanticism invited willing surrender. Present-day readers similarly prepared to suspend cynicism and surrender to its vintage charms will find unexpected depths, wisdom and even social protest.’

'The Village,’ wrote Julian Margaret Gibbs in The Tablet, ‘is a novel of ideas but it is warm and readable because Marghanita Laski is good at character and relationships too... She looks to the future a good deal and often her views are dated, but this emphasis on the significance of the changes coming to the village seems, from our vantage point, prescient.’

‘Good Food on the Aga is an absolute gem,’ said Hayley Anderton in Leicestershire and Rutland Life, ‘totally indespensable for anybody owning one of these ovens. First published in 1933, this is another offering from the excellent Persephone Books. All of the dishes are particularly suited to Aga cooking but not exclusively so, so don’t dismiss this just because you have the “wrong” oven. It’s a delight from start to finish.’

In the Independent Books of the Year Charlie Lee-Potter chose They Can’t Ration These, ‘a whimsical forerunner to Food for Free, packed with recipes for stewed starlings, sage toothpaste and hedgehog pate. I pore over it late at night and cheer myself with the thought that the recipe for snail consomme need never be used again.’ While the Christmas Eve International Herald Tribune commented, in a long piece on the Vicomte de Mauduit’s book: ‘He was trying to make the best of a rotten situation and could not have guessed that his coping strategies would become part of today’s affluent society. The salads he recommends are now found in supermarkets along with olive oil, which in his day was only found in chemists. The pumpkins and squashes which he praises are replacing the beet on modish menus. Perhaps the biggest star of de Mauduit’s book is the good old nettle.’

Finally, The Victorian (the Victorian Society’s journal) called Bricks and Mortar ‘intelligent and serious, vividly evoking the period, in parts genuinely touching. One of the most atractive strands is the father-daughter relationship: Helen Ashton conveys well the enthusiasm they both feel for the architectural education he gives.’