“Have no fear, young Mistress” came Marmaduke’s voice soothingly behind her. “There is enough. There is sufficient plum cake, saffron cake, cherry cake, iced fairy cakes, eclairs, gingerbread, meringues, syllabub, almond fingers, rock cakes, chocolate cakes, parkin, cream horns, Devonshire splits, Cornish pasty, jam sandwiches, lemon-curd sandwiches, cinnamon toast and honey toast to feed twenty and more.”
Hungry? Elizabeth Goudge probably was when she wrote that in food-rationed, fuel-rationed, under siege England during WWII. At the same time as she was writing this longing dream of luxury food in “The Little White Horse”, Evelyn Waugh was sitting in a Devonshire hotel banging out “Brideshead Revisited”, probably on a diet enriched by a few extra black-market eggs and almost certainly drinking more claret and more cocktails, but longing in a similar vein for the days of champagne, white bread, plover’s eggs and lobster Newburg
Voluptuous descriptions of food and feasts aren’t limited to books written during the war. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” was published in 1950 when sugar, sweets (candy, lollies), canned and dried fruits, many forms of meat and even that staple of British life, tea, were still rationed. This goes someway to towards explaining both Edmund’s selling-out for a large box of Turkish Delight and the occasional purple passage where Lewis rapsodises “ .. it was a wonderful tea. There was a nice brown egg, lightly boiled for each of them (!) and then sardines on toast and then buttered toast and then toast with honey and then a sugar topped cake.”
Even books ostensibly set in reality, written during the period of food rationing are suffused with idealised visions of ever-available food. In Enid Blyton’s “Five Find-Outers”, for instance, written in the 40s and 50s, the Find-Outers are constantly swilling lemonade and swigging ginger-beer or popping into tea-shops, the proprietors of which proffer the desired plates laden with macaroons as they enter.
I can imagine that it was a form of wish-fulfillment for the authors, writing about sweet, non-available food, but I wonder what it was like to read these books as a child living in wartime or austerity. Was it torturous or were the descriptions simply too fantastic, too unreal and so a table laden with cake and jam-sandwiches was as much a fairy-tale as a unicorn and a tame lion?
Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Midwinter Books? Intermittently since 1703? What the heck?
Well, the “Midwinter” bit is easy enough - it’s my surname. The “intermittently since 1703” is a grandiose attempt to link to a bunch of maybe-but-probably-not relatives who had publishing and bookselling businesses in early eighteenth century London.
Daniel Midwinter (maybe 1675 - about 1733) and his son Daniel Midwinter (-1759) were printers and booksellers whose businesses could be found in St Paul’s churchyard, London at the Sign of the Rose and Crown and at later at the Sign of the Three Crowns. They were (possibly quite literally) bigwigs in the Stationer’s Company with the younger Daniel leaving the Stationers a thousand pounds to apprentice four children per year (and pay for their ‘graduating’ clothes) and to help fund the Company’s annual Dinner on 01 December.
The Daniels tended to the serious and weighty style of book, fun-filled tomes like “A new Geographical Dictionary containing a brief Defcription (sic) of the Countries, Empires, Kingdoms, Provinces, Cities, Mountains, Lakes, &c of the World” or “A Treatise of Fluxions: or, an Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Containing a full Explication of that Method by which the Most Celebrated Geometers of the present Age have made such vast Advances in Mechanical Philosophy” which is interesting to those of us who love Neal Stephenson’s “The Baroque Trilogy” but must have been pretty heavy going.
Edward Midwinter (-1736) had a shop at the Sign of the Looking Glass on London Bridge, (which must be one of the most romantic addresses ever) and at (the considerably more prosaic) Pye Corner. He appears to have specialised in chapbooks and sensational or popular literature like “Cynthia: A Tragical Account of the Unfortunate Lovers of Almerin and Desdemona” and “A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates”. He may not have been, to modern eyes, 100% scrupulous about little things like copyright, being involved in an abridged edition of “Robinson Crusoe” possibly cut and published without involving Daniel Defoe in any way
The Daniel Midwinters was described as doing “topping business” - as opposed to Edward who may have ended up in in the Mint district of Southwark trying to escape those to whom he owed money.
I like to think that the modern “Midwinter Books” has Edward’s style of merchandise - and the Daniel’s business acumen.
Daniel Midwinter (maybe 1675 - about 1733) and his son Daniel Midwinter (-1759) were printers and booksellers whose businesses could be found in St Paul’s churchyard, London at the Sign of the Rose and Crown and at later at the Sign of the Three Crowns. They were (possibly quite literally) bigwigs in the Stationer’s Company with the younger Daniel leaving the Stationers a thousand pounds to apprentice four children per year (and pay for their ‘graduating’ clothes) and to help fund the Company’s annual Dinner on 01 December.
The Daniels tended to the serious and weighty style of book, fun-filled tomes like “A new Geographical Dictionary containing a brief Defcription (sic) of the Countries, Empires, Kingdoms, Provinces, Cities, Mountains, Lakes, &c of the World” or “A Treatise of Fluxions: or, an Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Containing a full Explication of that Method by which the Most Celebrated Geometers of the present Age have made such vast Advances in Mechanical Philosophy” which is interesting to those of us who love Neal Stephenson’s “The Baroque Trilogy” but must have been pretty heavy going.
Edward Midwinter (-1736) had a shop at the Sign of the Looking Glass on London Bridge, (which must be one of the most romantic addresses ever) and at (the considerably more prosaic) Pye Corner. He appears to have specialised in chapbooks and sensational or popular literature like “Cynthia: A Tragical Account of the Unfortunate Lovers of Almerin and Desdemona” and “A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates”. He may not have been, to modern eyes, 100% scrupulous about little things like copyright, being involved in an abridged edition of “Robinson Crusoe” possibly cut and published without involving Daniel Defoe in any way
The Daniel Midwinters was described as doing “topping business” - as opposed to Edward who may have ended up in in the Mint district of Southwark trying to escape those to whom he owed money.
I like to think that the modern “Midwinter Books” has Edward’s style of merchandise - and the Daniel’s business acumen.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Bedtime Reading - or - The Guilty Pleasures of Re-Re-Reading
No not that sort of bedtime reading. Books that won't give you nightmares about maddened psychotic killers (yes, Jonathan Kellerman, I mean you) or books that kill off cherished characters or children (Dorothy Dunnett's brilliant, awful chess game in "Pawn In Frankincense") thus leading to angst and sleeplessness.
For me, that means a nice, safe, re-read to guarantee no ghastly surprises. And I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, some of my bedside table stack contains books that are being re-read for the *insert large number of your choice*th time. If a book is good once, it'll be good again. And again. And again.
Top of the pile is Georgette Heyer. At her best she rivals Miss Austen for sly humour and anthropological observation and although her books are a lot less dense than Austen, there's plenty of room in my life for the meringue of Heyer as well as the boiled fruit cake of Austen. My favourites would be "The Unknown Ajax", "Frederica" and "The Grand Sophy", but almost all of them make an appearance in the stack (except for "Cousin Kate", see previous caveat re: psycho killers).
Another safe re-read are the works of D. E. Stephenson. Light romance with some interesting sociological observations - particularly see the not-100%-fiction "Mrs Tim" tales subtitled "Leaves From An Officer's Wife's Diary" they are drawn from her own experiences following her Army husband. My favourites are "Miss Buncle's Book" and "Katherine Wentworth". Some are quite dated now (the social attitudes in "Miss Bun the Baker's Daughter" seem mid-Victorian) but there isn't one I'm not happy to re-read. I'm particularly love the way characters from one book appear briefly in another, connecting almost all in a complex web, although all are complete in themselves. So Edward, the anti-hero in "The Tall Stranger" turns up (unredeemed) in "The Musgraves" or Rhoda from "Vittoria Cottage", "Music in the Hills", "Winter and Rough Weather" pops into "Bel Lamington" as a dea ex machina. It makes the books seem even more real.
And, oh guiltiest of guilty pleasures, I love the novels of Essie Summers. She was a New Zealand writer of romance novels - Mills and Boon - but with a depth of character and ability to describe a scene that is missing in many a 'serious novelist''s work. She set her books primarily in the South Island, frequently on large sheep runs - see "A Place called Paradise", "The House of the Shining Tide". Often the hero was a minister or the heroine a minister's daughter, Summers, being a minister's wife had a fund of amusing and/or disastrous anecdotes to draw upon. The books are dated, the sexiest they get is a burning kiss, heroines or heroes are haunted by bygone scandals ("Sweet are the Ways") that would be food for a merry Facebook status update nowdays. But the quality of writing and the sheer niceness of the stories remain.
Anne
For me, that means a nice, safe, re-read to guarantee no ghastly surprises. And I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, some of my bedside table stack contains books that are being re-read for the *insert large number of your choice*th time. If a book is good once, it'll be good again. And again. And again.
Top of the pile is Georgette Heyer. At her best she rivals Miss Austen for sly humour and anthropological observation and although her books are a lot less dense than Austen, there's plenty of room in my life for the meringue of Heyer as well as the boiled fruit cake of Austen. My favourites would be "The Unknown Ajax", "Frederica" and "The Grand Sophy", but almost all of them make an appearance in the stack (except for "Cousin Kate", see previous caveat re: psycho killers).
Another safe re-read are the works of D. E. Stephenson. Light romance with some interesting sociological observations - particularly see the not-100%-fiction "Mrs Tim" tales subtitled "Leaves From An Officer's Wife's Diary" they are drawn from her own experiences following her Army husband. My favourites are "Miss Buncle's Book" and "Katherine Wentworth". Some are quite dated now (the social attitudes in "Miss Bun the Baker's Daughter" seem mid-Victorian) but there isn't one I'm not happy to re-read. I'm particularly love the way characters from one book appear briefly in another, connecting almost all in a complex web, although all are complete in themselves. So Edward, the anti-hero in "The Tall Stranger" turns up (unredeemed) in "The Musgraves" or Rhoda from "Vittoria Cottage", "Music in the Hills", "Winter and Rough Weather" pops into "Bel Lamington" as a dea ex machina. It makes the books seem even more real.
And, oh guiltiest of guilty pleasures, I love the novels of Essie Summers. She was a New Zealand writer of romance novels - Mills and Boon - but with a depth of character and ability to describe a scene that is missing in many a 'serious novelist''s work. She set her books primarily in the South Island, frequently on large sheep runs - see "A Place called Paradise", "The House of the Shining Tide". Often the hero was a minister or the heroine a minister's daughter, Summers, being a minister's wife had a fund of amusing and/or disastrous anecdotes to draw upon. The books are dated, the sexiest they get is a burning kiss, heroines or heroes are haunted by bygone scandals ("Sweet are the Ways") that would be food for a merry Facebook status update nowdays. But the quality of writing and the sheer niceness of the stories remain.
Anne
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