Press Coverage Winter 2005

In the Spectator Charlotte Moore described Hetty Dorval as ‘a psychological journey’ that is ‘reminiscent of Edith Wharton or of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, but is clearer and prettier than either. Ethel Wilson sketches people and places with marvellous economy... Hetty Dorval has one of the most resonant and suggestive concluding sentences I’ve ever come across. It’s a strange little treat.’ And Elena Seymenliyska in the Guardian thought that Ethel Wilson’s ‘charming’ novel ‘told in a lovely sing-song voice... is immaculately written, and the author’s letter to her publisher, politely rejecting most editorial changes, provides a fascinating appendix to a beautifully produced edition.’

In the Observer Rachel Cooke wrote a column about cookbooks that are read for pleasure not just for utilitarian purposes: ‘The true joy of cookbooks lies not only in whether their recipes work. It also has to do with scholarship, social history, good writing and – most important of all – vicarious pleasure.’ And she recommended some cookbooks that are useful ‘but they also have an extra something that means you’re as likely to be wearing pyjamas as an apron when you read them’; these included books by MFK Fisher, Jane Grigson, Claudia Roden and ‘last, but not least, Agnes Jekyll’s Kitchen Essays, in which she quotes Meredith and thus seems to sum the whole thing up: “When we let Romance go, we change the sky for the ceiling.”’

In the Spectator Cressida Connolly said ‘Despite its grim subject (an old woman, Mrs Temple, losing her memory) There Were No Windows is a quite extraordinary book... unflinchingly, blackly funny, brilliantly observed and terrifying... The book is set during the Second World War, in the London Blitz; servants are thin on the ground and, to Mrs Temple’s dismay, fail to behave with the deference of yore... As well as describing Mrs Temple’s demise, the novel thus gives a sly account of the end of an entire way of life.’

The Sunday Telegraph called The Hopkins Manuscript ‘intensely readable and touching’ while The Tablet decribed its hero as ‘a self-important little man called Edgar Hopkins, whose chief passion, apart from membership of the British Lunar Society, is breeding poultry: it is his reaction to the coming cataclysm, which is announced to the Lunar Society some seven months in advance, that forms the main interest of the novel.... After the cataclysm, we are strangely taken by surprise, and it would be a great pity to reveal just what Sherriff does with his plot. Devotees of science fiction will like this book for its importance in the history of the genre, and those who enjoy a well-crafted novel will admire it for its panache. In addition (and the excellent introduction by Michael Moorcock makes this point), despite the fact that the moon crashing to earth is fantastic, most of its observations on human nature are timeless, and many aspects of its ending give us a parable for our times in the post-9/11 world. Sherriff is not just an artist but perhaps also a prophet as well.’

Fay Weldon chose The Hopkins Manuscript as one of her two books for Summer Reading in the Observer. She wrote: ‘RC Sherriff wrote this spectacular, skilled and moving novel in 1939. It is supremely and alarmingly relevant to our life today.’
Finally, Jane Rye in the Spectator called Barbara Noble’s Doreen ‘a gentle, serious story in which, rather disconcertingly, everybody behaves well... The author’s argument is scrupulously fair; she is observant, sensitive and intelligent.’