Although it’s now Friday I wanted to answer this Booking Through Thursday question:

Do you remember the first book you bought for yourself? Or the first book you checked out of the library? What was it and why did you choose it?

I can’t remember which was the first library book I borrowed – it cold have been Dear Teddy Robinson by Joan G Robinson. My mum took me to the library before I started school and I remember that whichever book it was I liked it so much I didn’t want to return it and was only consoled when mum said I could borrow another book.

I think The Gloriet Tower by Eileen Meyler is the first book I bought for myself. I still have this hardback book. The description on the book jacket describes it as a

… tale for older children set in Corfe Castle a few years before the beginning of the Hundred Years War. The family there who found themselves drawn into a strange and cruel plot had no existence except in the Author’s imagination. Nevertheless a thin thread of fact runs through the story. The death of Edward II and the power wielded by his widowed Queen and her favourite Mortimer belong to history. The plot to ensnare the King’s brother and the merry-making and the dancing on the walls are true enough and true also is the story of the capture of the Earl of Kent.  … the castle and the wild heath, lapped by the waters of the harbour, are true until this day. They are there for all to see for themselves.

As far as I remember I chose this book because of its historical setting in a castle – I loved castles (still do), and I liked the cover picture. And so began my love of historical fiction. Looking at it today I think I’d like to read it once more.

Many years later I visited Corfe Castle in Dorset, now owned by the National Trust. It was swarming with people and I wished I could have seen it in years gone by when it wasn’t a tourist attraction.