Saturday 18 October 2008

Better late than never

I ordered the Persephone edition of Mariana by Monica Dickens through my local bookshop back in August. It arrived yesterday. Meantime, I'd requested it from the reserve store of the library, read it and written about it! Oh well, it's nice to have my own copy and the Persephone Classics edition contains an excellent introduction by Harriet Lane. Here's a nice extract from Mariana:
It was the smell of clean sheets that reminded Mary of what, when she was a child, she called the Charbury Smell. It was the first thing you noticed as you went in at the front door of Charbury; an indefinable pot-pourri of all the fragrant things in the house - roses, wood-smoke, polished floors, bread, and lavender-kept old linen.

8 comments:

Tara said...

I just adore that cover! I'm now wishing I didn't have this and others with the original grey covers - I love the classics!

Vintage Reading said...

Isn't it nice? I must take a trip to Persephone soon. I want the Katherine Mansfield Journal and I'd like to take a look at the other Persephone Classics that have just been published along with Mariana - not sure which titles they are. Nicola

LINDA from Each Little World said...

Oh, I am hooked on the grey ones. They are like secret books that only the reader knows what's inside. And I love the end papers and bookmark.

I have probably ordered a dozen of them from the U.K. which will have to stop with the downturn in the economy. Of course, it was a big extravagance before, but I managed to justify it.

And Nicola, thank you so much for adding me to your blog list. That is very thoughtful and generous of you. I have not yet done a favorite blog list as I'm still more or less compiling my list.

I am planning on doing more books — quite a stack that I've read lately but have not managed reviews.

Cornflower said...

I did enjoy that book and yes, the house does figure large in my memory of it.

Vintage Reading said...

Hi ms wis and Karen, yes I have a very cool favourite blog list!

Frisbee said...

I love Monica Dickens: she is one of my favorite writers. I especially love her autobiographies: One Pair of Hands, something about feet (sorry, I've forgotten the title), and My Turn to Make the Tea. She is so humorous...

Kathy

Vintage Reading said...

Kathy, hi. I do want to read more Monica Dickens. It seems she is held in affectionate regard by a lot of readers. Nicola

Saz said...

oooohhh, I am hoping to buy that soon.. I've just finished Miss Pettigrew lives for a day by Winifred Watson and was delighted with it....MORE!!!!