Press Coverage
Autumn/Winter 2009

‘In The Victorian Chaise-longue a young married woman, Melanie, scours antiques shops to furnish her new home and comes back with an old chaise-longue, which is perfect apart from an unsightly reddish-brown stain. She falls asleep on it and wakes up in an unfamiliar house, an unfamiliar time – and an unfamiliar body. At first she assumes she must be dreaming. But gradually she starts to piece together the story of Milly, the young Victorian woman in the last stages of consumption whom she has apparently become, and the nature of the disgrace she has brought on the household run by her fearsomely stern elder sister. Why does the sight of the doctor make her pulse beat faster? And can she find a way back to her own life?’
From the Guardian’s ‘1000 novels Everyone Must Read’

‘Good Evening, Mrs Craven is a funny, poignant book indeed. Mollie Panter-Downes has the sharpest of eyes for irony and manners, and she loves to poke affectionate fun at overly stiff characters. Her greatest grace, though, is her ability to capture, in quick flashes, the immediacy of life during the war. Her characters are petty and noble, hungry and brave, solid and silly and true.’
Over the course of the day (and the evening and the late, late night) Miss Pettigrew enjoys her first cocktail party, her first night-club visit, first waltz in a very long time, and she makes the first friends she’s found in ages. To read Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is to spend several enjoyable hours feeling that the world is a loving, forgiving place. It’s a flute of champagne after a good filling tea-time meal. It’s a lark and a spree and a little bit of literary therapy.’
Watermark Books

‘Despite its original publication 75 years ago, The Country Housewife’s Book is full of sound advice that many of us would love to spend long summer days following – picking and bottling fruit, making jams and jellies, drying herbs and making medicinal use of them. There are also useful tips on how to dispatch “the mischievous mouse” and cherish ladybirds since they are the “the unpaid helpers of the country housewife”.’
History Today

‘First published in 1934, Miss Buncle’s Book is a hilarious romp that pokes gentle fun at publishing and at the claustrophobia of village life. Miss Buncle, frumpy and 40, writes a risqué bestseller (nom-de-plume John Smith) based all too obviously on her neighbours. Outraged, they threaten libel suits if only they could identify Mr Smith. Miss Buncle has the last laugh – all the way to the bank.’ Val Hennessy in the
Daily Mail

’I relished every minute I spent reading The Home-Maker, which is thought-provoking, heart-warming and immensely readable. It mulls over serious questions like the power relation- ships that exist between parent and child and whether “even a little boy had some standing in the world, inviolable by grown- ups, yes, sacred even to parents.”’
Moira Richards in Red Room

‘In Cheerful Weather for the Wedding Julia Strachey creates an environment of comic high anxiety and unexpected imagery. Metaphors that at first appear whimsical are quickly revealed to be perfectly apt, as when Strachey describes the bride’s forgetful mother, who has just assigned half of the overnight guests to the same bedroom, as having the worried facial expression of someone who had “swallowed a packet of live bumblebees”. Julia Strachey’s sharp eye, playful language and perfect comic timing will have you laughing.’
Jessa Crispin on NPR.org

‘I am currently reading Clough’s wonderful narrative poem Amours de Voyage in a charming edition. It has a soothing grey cover with a satin finish and warm blue and green endpapers. The paper is thick, creamy and sweet- smelling. I would happily give this lovely thing a smacking great kiss.’
Rupert Christiansen Daily Telegraph

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