Sweetman, David. Mary Renault: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1993.
255-7, 260
Connections Sort descending | Author name | Excerpt |
---|---|---|
Material Conditions of Writing | Mary Renault | Since the American Book-of-the-Month Club
wanted to distribute the book if publication could be speeded up, MR
corrected proofs over the transatlantic telephone (then very imperfect). She found the process exhausting and frustrating. Sweetman, David. Mary Renault: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1993. 255-7, 260 |
Publishing | Henry Handel Richardson | She felt that her second volume had been a failure, and this made it very hard to go on. Then Heinemann
, with low expectations for sales and set back by the stark undiluted tragedy... |
Reception | Storm Jameson | The Hidden River had some bad reviews in influential places, but excellent sales. It was a Book Society
choice, earning £2,500 in English royalties, £268 from Book-of-the-Month Club
in Canada, and a dollar amount... |
Reception | Rosamond Lehmann | Reviewers were pleased to see more fiction from Lehmann after nine years, and the book was popular, although not hugely applauded. Those praising it included Edwin Muir
. There was much debate over the real-life... |
Reception | George Orwell | Animal Farm was and is extremely successful. It sold half a million copies in its first month, thanks to the American Book-of-the-Month Club
, Meyers, Jeffrey. A Reader’s Guide to George Orwell. Littlefield, Adams, 1977. 41-2 |
Reception | Elizabeth Bowen | Cyril Connolly
expressed his admiration in the New Statesman, where he was reviewing a novel for the first time. Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. 78 |
Reception | Pearl S. Buck | The Good Earth was a Book of the Month Club
choice, on the recommendation of Dorothy Canfield Fisher
, who had sat up all night reading it. Spurling, Hilary. Pearl Buck in China. Simon and Schuster, 2010. 188, 193 |
Reception | Vita Sackville-West | There was a widespread feeling that VSW
had been too circumspect and scholarly. Virginia Woolf
told Vita that she found the book solid, strong, satisfactory Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne TrautmannEditors , Hogarth Press, 1980. 6: 49 |
Reception | Jan Struther | The US edition of Mrs. Miniver became a roaring success long before the film was thought of. It was a Book-of-the-Month Club
choice, and the publishers were eager to get JS
to tour America to... |
Reception | Angela Thirkell | This, like all its immediate predecessors, met with excellent reviews, even though Hugh Walpole
regretted its lack of plot. Strickland, Margot. Angela Thirkell: Portrait of a Lady Novelist. Duckworth, 1977. 120 |
Reception | Pearl S. Buck | The Three Daughters of Madame Liang was chosen by the Book of the Month Club
and by the Readers Digest (for a condensed version). Spurling
located the value of this book and Letter from Peking... |
Reception | Sylvia Townsend Warner | The novel was nominated for the 1926 Prix Femina, and was the first selection of the American Book-of-the-Month Club
, an organisation newly formed that year. Warner, Sylvia Townsend. “Editorial Materials”. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Collected Poems, edited by Claire Harman, Carcanet New Press, 1982, pp. xi - xxiii; 275. xix Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series. Gale Research, 1981. 60: 409 |
Reception | Isak Dinesen | When this, like ID
's first book, became a Book-of-the-Month Club
choice, she felt it would cheapen the recognition awarded the earlier work—showing that she misinterpreted this commercial honour as a purely critical one. Thurman, Judith. Isak Dinesen: The Life of Karen Blixen. Penguin, 1984. 312 |
Reception | Buchi Emecheta | The Joys of Motherhood was a Book-of-the-Month Club
selection in 1979, and BE
received a Best British Writer's Award for it in 1980. Umeh, Marie, editor. Emerging Perspectives on Buchi Emecheta. Africa World Press, 1996. 458 |
Reception | Rumer Godden | This book was a joint Book-of-the-Month Club
choice in the USA, and earned RG
about $20,000. Spencer Curtis
concluded he had been wrong to condemn it; but she feared he might have been right. Godden, Rumer. A House with Four Rooms. Macmillan, 1989. 115 |