Book Society

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Reception E. H. Young
This time The Spectator, pursuing the line of excessive modernist influence, called EHY a thicker-skinned Virginia Woolf . . . but hardly less bogged in the undifferentiated welter of phenomenal experience.
Mezei, Kathy, and Chiara Briganti. “’She must be a very good novelist’: Rereading E. H. Young (1880-1949)”. English Studies in Canada, Vol.
27
, No. 3, pp. 303-31.
307
This novel...
Reception Dorothy Whipple
Colonel and Mrs Williams , the owners of Parciau, were far from pleased at finding themselves and their lives portrayed in fiction.
Conville, David, and Dorothy Whipple. “Afterword”. The Priory, Persephone Books, pp. 529-36.
533
The novel, however, was again a Book Society Choice.
Whipple, Dorothy. Random Commentary. Michael Joseph.
99
It was...
Reception Dorothy Whipple
They Were Sisters too became a Book Society Choice.
Whipple, Dorothy. Random Commentary. Michael Joseph.
147
Sales before publication day passed 32,000, and the editor of Woman's Magazine said it was of course a masterpiece.
Whipple, Dorothy. Random Commentary. Michael Joseph.
152
DW was offered by Gaumont-British
Reception Dorothy Whipple
Its publication, however, was unmarked by any major review. It was the first novel by DW since her earliest of all not to be at least a Book Society Recommendation, if not a Choice. DW
Publishing Dorothy Whipple
Again she felt sure the book would be a failure, judging it not properly thought out in the beginning, about nothing—stale, flat.
Whipple, Dorothy. Random Commentary. Michael Joseph.
22
Nevertheless she giggled at the thought of it as a defective offspring...
Reception Dorothy Whipple
A reader at Curtis Brown praised DW 's very shrewd and natural gift of depicting her middle-class characters, while Lord Gorell at John Murray wrote: Much her best work and the former was good.
Whipple, Dorothy. Random Commentary. Michael Joseph.
23
Reception Evelyn Waugh
The novel was a Book Society Choice.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
(7 May 1938): 313
Writing in 2010 on the influence of the media on British Prime Ministers, Ferdinand Mount observed: pretty much all you need to know about...
Reception Evelyn Waugh
This novel was a Book Society choice.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
It brought Waugh hundreds of thousands of new American readers, and, astonishingly to him, fan-mail.
Stovel, Bruce, and Bruce Stovel. “The Genesis of Evelyn Waugh’s Comic Vision. Waugh, Captain Grimes, and <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Decline and Fall</span&gt”;. Jane Austen and Company: Collected Essays, edited by Nora Foster Stovel and Nora Foster Stovel, University of Alberta Press, pp. 181-0.
182
In early 1946 Life magazine carried his article entitled Fan-Fare, in...
Friends, Associates Susanna Watts
In her own more local circle, however, SW was relaxed and good company. She belonged to a Book Society . She was a close friend of the Hutton and the Coltman families and especially, in...
Reception Angela Thirkell
It was chosen Book of the Month by the Book Society .
Strickland, Margot. Angela Thirkell: Portrait of a Lady Novelist. Duckworth.
108
Reception Freya Stark
Recommended by the Book Society and the Book Guild , The Southern Gates of Arabia also received high praise in the Daily Telegraph, among other papers. FS , rather surprisingly, was compared to Jane Austen
Reception Christopher St John
The reviewer in British Book News wrote: This admirable volume forms a valuable complement to [Smyth's] own autobiographical works, which are minor masterpieces of English prose.
British Book News. British Council.
(1959): 345
The biography became a Book Society book...
Reception Muriel Spark
This novel was chosen a Book Society recommendation (of which between six and ten were selected per month); it was not the choice of the month, since the panel felt it was too morbid—deeply...
Reception Vita Sackville-West
Woolf reported reading the novel all in a gulp with pleasure in bed; very well done I think.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
5: 214
It was a Book Society Choice, recommended by Clemence Dane and Hugh Walpole , and...
Textual Production Laura Riding
This was the first book LR published with the new firm of Arthur Barker in London. She took some trouble to disguise identities, since Barker was worried about potential libel actions. The Book Society backed...

Timeline

By April 1929: The Book Society (first conceived of by Arnold...

Writing climate item

By April 1929

The Book Society (first conceived of by Arnold Bennett ) was launched by Hugh Walpole with himself as chairman; it was the first such society in Britain.

1930: The Book Guild was funded, on the model of...

Building item

1930

The Book Guild was funded, on the model of the Book Society of the previous year, to cater to the needs of the intelligent but not academic (middle-brow) reader.

1944: Hodder and Stoughton, along with Alan Bott...

Writing climate item

1944

Hodder and Stoughton , along with Alan Bott of the Book Society , founded Pan Books Limited , with Aubrey Forshaw as the managing director.

Texts

No bibliographical results available.