The sparkling correspondence of a great author – #1937Club

Today’s book for the #1937Club is one that’s long overdue some attention, lurking as it has been on Mount TBR since its reissue in 2014 (ten years ago – OMG!!!) It’s a release from indie publisher Michael Walmer, and was the first in his ‘belles-lettres’ series. A chunky and handsome volume, it’s “Letters to a Friend” by the esteemed author Winifred Holtby, and it makes absolutely fabulous reading.

Holtby is probably best remembered now for her novels, in particular “South Riding”, which is something of a classic; and her novels have been published by Virago (many of them also lurking on the TBR…) However, in her time, she was something of an activist, mixing with a fascinating range of people, and the letters reveal much of her life.

Holtby was born in Yorkshire in 1898 to a prosperous farming family; educated at home and then at Queen Margaret’s School in Scarborough, she passed the entrance exam for Somerville College, Oxford in 1917. However, Holtby delayed her entry, instead joining the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), and in 1918 was sent to France. It was here that she met Jean McWilliam who was the commander of her camp; Holtby became her hostel foreman and the two women became firm, lifelong friends. However, post-war, McWilliam moved to South Africa and the book collects the many letters Holtby wrote to her friend until her early death in 1935.

It has to be said up front that Holtby is a marvellous correspondent – anyone would love to receive letters of this calibre! Addressing her friend as Rosalind and signing herself, almost always, as Celia (in reference to the two cousins in “As You Like It”) Holtby relays events from her life, reflections on the changes taking place in the world, impressions of London through the seasons, thoughts about the latest books and plays, and much, much more. The period immediately after the First World War was one of change, with society trying to come to terms with the devastation wrought by that conflict and to build a newer, better world. Holtby was heavily involved in the League of Nations, having pacifist and feminist views, and this led her to giving talks and lectures, attending meetings, and even standing on Hyde Park Corner (or indeed any street!) and simply starting to talk to the public!

As I said above, she’s remembered nowadays for her novels and also for her great friendship with the novelist Vera Brittain, and the latter features all through the book in Holtby’s letters. I’ve read that Brittain could be a difficult woman (which is understandable as she lost close friends, a fiance and a brother in the war); however, apparently the picture she left of Holtby is often an unkind one. McWilliam, I think, would have none of that, and the letters in this collection show Holtby as intelligent, committed to causes and so often displaying a wonderfully positive view of life.

We talked about burlesques and school discipline and Dostoievsky and porridge, and whether bread and cheese and beer are really better than stuffed olives and champagne, and neckties and dons and all the thousand and one silly things that one talks about on a long morning when the air is frosty and the roads are dry.

Holtby’s letters reflect her deep involvement in social causes; she was also a prolific journalist, producing pieces for whoever would take them, and as the years moved on she became more able to publish. The letters also contain her reflections on her novels as she wrote them, and she most definitely lacked confidence in them. By the time of her death, she’d published six novels as well as poetry, short stories and non-fiction. Yet she never seemed satisfied with the books, and she was working on “South Riding” at the time of her death; publication was arrange posthumously by Brittain.

Despite her self-doubt, Holtby was a sparkling, engaging correspondent, not afraid to engage in debate about the issues of the time and always clear about her affection for her friend. The letters do thin out at the end and I wondered if this was because life was busy and getting in the way of writing, or because of the editing process. The collection was put together by McWilliam and Holtby’s mother Alice, and released of course in 1937; it may be that there were personal issues or views that they were uncomfortable including. However, the picture that emerges of Holtby is a compelling one; a committed woman, a loyal and caring friend, and someone who always tried to help those she could, she’s a person I would like to have known.

Holtby always comes across as very human, in that she’s not afraid to change her mind, explore other points of view and indeed questions herself and her attitudes on a regular basis. However, she does hold back from committing completely to something like the socialist cause; I suspect because of her background and upbringing, and even after years of helping the less well off, she can still state: “I agree with Bernard Shaw that poverty is a crime, not a misfortune, and that what’s wrong with the world is not that there are rich capitalists, but that every one is not sensible enough to be a capitalist.” I have to say that we would disagree on this one!!

A few words on this edition; as I mentioned, Michael Walmer re-issued this in 2014 and it’s basically a facsimile of the original edition. Being a book from 1937, there is terminology which would not be acceptable nowadays, despite Holtby’s openness towards other races and creeds. Interestingly, she was aware of the colour issue, particularly as McWilliam was living and working in South Africa; although she doesn’t pontificate particularly deeply on the difficulties there. The Irish problem, too, concerned her greatly. I did find myself brought up short a couple of times by the contradiction of someone who seeks equality for all on one page then saying on the next page “we are going to have a servant”; but of course Britain was still very much a society based on class at that point! Being an older reader (!) I got most of the references in the books to events and institutions (the only notation is minor and provided by McWilliam at the time), but I suspect a younger reader might require Google to clarify some items!

My pile of (unread) Holtbys plus Brittain’s book on their friendship

But in the end this is such a fascinating read, and opens your eyes to what life was like in the years when you didn’t go out and buy your clothes off the peg but instead made your own, or had them made for you, and a couple of items had to do for a season! The glimpses of everyday life are one of the most fascinating aspects of Holtby’s letters, and they’re valuable for that alone. They also cover her relationship with Vera, her meetings with Stella Benson, Rose Macaulay and many others, and all in all, these letters make an absorbing collection. Much of her thought on the state of the world and the need for countries to live in harmony is sadly still very relevant, and I do feel that we’re missing intelligent commentators nowadays.

I hadn’t intended to read Holtby’s letters when I first made my list of possible reads for 1937, but in the end I’m really glad I did. She was a wonderful writer; warm, intelligent, humorous and always concerned for her friends and for others. “Letters to a Friend” is a brilliant read, and I really *must* get round to reading some of her fiction!!

 

Entertaining essays and more from an independent publisher

Picking up the theme from my post about the Bulgakov Collection, another independent publisher I follow with interest is Michael Walmer. Based in Australia, Mike has a history in publishing (having worked for the legendary Marion Boyars) and he specialises in bringing back into print neglected works over a wide rage of genres and time periods. I’ve read several books from his imprint and a fascinating lot they are – I was particularly taken with Stella Benson, whom I might not have read had it not been for his promotion of her.

I wanted to focus on one particular strand of books Mike publishes, and that’s his Belles Lettres series. Comprising so far four volumes, it really is an interesting collection, and the titles to date are:

Letters to a Friend by Winifred Holtby
Letters of Lord Byron
Letters to the Sphinx by Oscar Wilde
The Sins of Society by Ouida

I own three of the books (as you can see from the picture!) and I’ve read one in full so far in the form of the Wilde, and you can read my thoughts here. It was a lovely book, and I spent some time over the Christmas break dipping into the others.

The Holtby volume is fascinating; she’s an author I know of course from her novels published by Virago, and I have a number of these on my shelf. Best known for “South Riding”, Holtby died tragically young but left behind quite a legacy and these letters are to her lifelong friend Jean McWilliam. Holtby and McWilliam met towards the end of WW1 in a WAAC camp, and the letters range from 1920 to 1935, the year of Winifred’s death. This a lovely, varied book, and the letters make fascinating reading, featuring poems and fragments of poems, thoughts on books, little drawings and the like. What also makes the book stand out is the picture it paints of the lives of women in the 1920s and 1930s, and even if you have no particular interest in or knowledge of Holtby, I can still highly recommend it as an excellent read.

Ouida is an author who’s been on the periphery of my vision for decades – possibly since I read “Literary Women” back in the 1980s, or maybe from my first reading of Dorothy Richardson’s “Pilgrimage” where she’s mentioned as being vaguely scandalous. I knew she wrote fiction but I wasn’t aware she wrote essays, and this lovely little collection Mike has issued was a surprising treat and great to dip into. Dating from the late 1800s, Ouida’s essays range over subjects like the vulgarity of her modern world and the stupidity of politics (nothing changes, then…) I was particularly taken with the piece entitled “Gardens” where she bemoans the trend of regimented gardens, designed in straight lines and all neat and tidy, with no individuality. I was also with her when she expressed her views on cut flowers – I can’t bear seeing flowers massacred for the sake of home decoration, and would rather have them growing wild than hothoused, cut and wired and then wilting after a day.

In the great world, and in the rich world, flowers are wasted with painful prodigality. The thousands and tens of thousands of flowers which die to decorate a single ball or reception are a sad sight to those who love them. ‘The rooms look well tonight,’ is the utmost that is ever said after all this waste of blossom and fragrance. It is waste, because scarcely a glance is bestowed on them, and the myriad of roses which cover the walls do not effectively make more impression on the eye than the original silk or satin wall-hanging which they momentarily replace… the ballroom in the morning is as melancholy a parable of the brevity of pleasure as any moralist could desire.

Finally, I’ve had an unexpected pleasure in the form of another non-fiction book from Mike Walmer. Not a part of the Belles Lettres series, “The Spring of Joy” by Mary Webb is subtitled “A Little Book of Healing”. Webb, of course, is best known as the author of such books as “Precious Bane”, and that’s a book that divides readers, particularly in the LibraryThing Virago group! As the book features large chunks of dialect, it tends to be something of a Marmite experience, and it was roundly satirised by Stella Gibbons in “Cold Comfort Farm”. I read the latter and loved it, but I never felt able to read Webb, so taking on a non-fiction book by her was a bit of a leap. However, I needn’t have worried; Webb’s book collects together a series of essays on aspects of nature to bring Joy, Laughter and Beauty. Nowadays, the idea of nature as a balm for the soul is not new, but I wonder how prevalent that was in Webb’s day? Nevertheless, her writing is lyrical and lovely, and I really enjoyed her thoughts on the natural world.

Insects are the artists of fragrance; they have a genius for it; there seems to be some affinity between the tenuity of their being and this most refined of the sense-impressions. Ghostly calls summon them to their banquets… Moths call each other by scent; so do bees; and probably the smallest ephemera follow the same law. These calls and answers cross the world continually like a web of fine threads, most of them too slight for our comprehension.

I’ve spent some happy times over recent weeks with all these books, and if you have an interest in essays, letters and nature writing these could well be volumes you would enjoy too. Michael Walmer’s catalogue is full of interesting books and so I’d encourage you to search out his website (there’s a link on my sidebar) and have a browse, especially if you’re bored with insubstantial modern writing! I must admit I often find the older books are the best!

More Little Black Lovelies – and cautious optimism…

I suppose it was a given that I would feel inclined to add a few more Little Black Classics to my stacks, bearing in mind how well I’ve got on with the Russians so far (review to follow!)  Fortunately, Waterstones still had their lovely display (though they had moved it) and I decided to come home with these beauties:

Sappho, Katherine Mansfield, Kate Chopin, Marx and Engels plus H.G. Wells – what fun! It’s yonks since I read The Communist Manifesto so I rather fancy a revisit, and the rest are all authors I’m fond of, and here they are in bite-size chunks. I think these LBCs are definitely the most successful of the Penguin special editions I’ve experienced!

I thought these would be enough for one day, but the charity shops had other ideas…. I blame Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book for this first one, actually, as he was singing its praises on Vulpes Libris this week and so I couldn’t ignore it in the Oxfam:

This next lovely book was from the Samaritans Book Cave – a beautiful Everyman hardback collection of four of Irene Nemirovsky’s novellas – “David Golder”; “The Ball”; “Snow in Autumn” and “The Courilof Affair”. I need to read more of this writer (I’ve only read “David Golder” so far) so this is an ideal way to do it – and a rather luxurious hardback for only £2.50 is not to be sneezed at.

My final find was an original green Virago in wonderful condition from the Crack On charity shop:

I own several Holtbys, but not this one – so it was worth 75p of anyone’s money!

As for the cautious optimism – well, I’ve read all 6 of the Russian Little Black Classics I picked up last week, and they’re all wonderful, particularly the Dostoevsky, which was stunning. I felt so uplifted after successfully reading them that I plunged into “The Leopard” and am a chapter in with no sign of stopping. So maybe the reading crisis is over – fingers crossed….. 🙂

Lucking out in the charity shops again!

Yes, Mount TBR is so big it will topple, and yes I *am* supposed to be reducing the amount of books in the house instead of increasing them – but I’m not really sure that’s ever going to work….

The safest way would simply be to stop going to the charity shops – but Youngest Child is off to university soon and so we are having a last few shopping days before she goes. And today did bring a couple of fortunate finds!

First up is what was Virago Modern Classic number 16 – way back in 1979 this one came out, and this volume is a first edition from then, with the previous owner’s name and date inscribed in the front. It’s in such lovely condition that she obviously took great care of it – and I found myself wondering, in a slightly melancholy way, why she’d parted with it. At least it has gone to a good home and will join my collection of green spines quite happily. (And yes – it was only £1!)

The second volume was a kind of ‘upgrade’ as I already have a brand new, modern version of this book courtesy of The Works, but a green is always preferable and although it’s been a bit more loved, it still will be happy with its fellows.

Despite slight feelings of guilt about yet *more* books, I think it would have been silly not to bring these two home….