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Sanditon by Jane Austen, edited by Kathryn Sutherland

Published on July 25, 2019 by Margaret8 Comments

Jane Austen has long been one of my favourite authors so I was delighted when Georgie Malcolm at the Oxford University Press contacted me to see if was interested in a review copy of a new edition of Jane Austen’s final, incomplete work Sanditon, edited with an introduction and explanatory notes on the text by Austen expert and Oxford University lecturer Kathryn Sutherland.

In Sanditon, Jane Austen writes what may well be the first seaside novel: a novel, that is, that explores the mysterious and startling transformations that a stay by the sea can work on individuals and relationships. Sanditon is a fictitious place on England’s south coast and the obsession of local landowner Mr Thomas Parker. He means to transform this humble fishing village into a fashionable health resort to rival its famous neighbours of Brighton and Eastbourne.

In this, her final, unfinished work, the writer sets aside her familiar subject matter, the country village with its settled community, for the transient and eccentric assortment of people who drift to the new resort, the town built upon sand. If the ground beneath her characters’ feet appears less secure, Austen’s own vision is opening out. Light and funny, Sanditon is her most experimental and poignant work.

I first read Sanditon only four years ago, in a combined publication of Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon and reviewed it in this post. I thoroughly enjoyed Sanditon, even in its unfinished state. It’s the last fiction that Jane Austen wrote, beginning it in January 1817, the year she died.

I’m looking forward to reading this new edition with great interest, particularly the introduction and the notes explaining literary allusions, references to diseases and contemporary medical treatments, Regency fashions, quasi-specialist language, etc. It certainly looks excellent!

And I see that ITV has a new adaptation by Andrew Davies of Sanditon that will air in eight parts this autumn.

Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: OUP Oxford (25 July 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0198840837
ISBN-13: 978-0198840831

Top Ten Tuesday: Settings I’d Like to See More Of

Published on July 24, 2019 by Margaret14 Comments

top-ten-tuesday-new
I’m a day late with this post!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

This week’s topic: Settings I’d Like to See More Of. One of the joys of reading is that you can be transported in time and place to anywhere in the world. I love to read about places I’ve visited as well as those I never have.

Places I’ve visited:

Wales is one of my favourite countries within the UK. . I Bought a Mountain by Thomas Firbank is just one of the books I’ve read, set in Snowdonia, or more precisely the Dryffyn Valley where on the south slopes of the Glyders Thomas Firbank bought a sheep farm in 1931. It’s a book that made me want to move to Wales immediately.

Oxford – the City of Dreaming Spires is one of my favourite places and is captured in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse books. The Dead of Jericho (not the Jericho in Israel, although I have been there too – I haven’t read any books set in that Jericho) is an area of Oxford near the Oxford Canal, just outside the original Oxford City wall. It was originally a place for travellers to rest if they had reached the city after the gates had closed

Martin Edwards’s Lake District Mystery series are novels based in various locations in the Lakes, one of the most beautiful areas of England – one of my favourites is The Arsenic Labyrinth in which Edwards explains that although the crime scene is imaginary, arsenic was mined at Caldbeck.

Appin between Oban and Ballachulish is in a beautiful area of Scotland. Castle Stalker, a 15th century tower house built by the Stewarts of Appin is on a small island in Loch Linnhe, just north east of Port Appin. It’s the setting for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, a fictionalised account of the “Appin Murder” of 1752. Castle Stalker is the location of Castle Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The Cairngorms are in another beautiful part of Scotland. A book that tells of real-life mountain rescues is Cairngorm John by John Allen who was a Team Leader in the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team. ‘Cairngorm John’ was his call sign when in contact with Search and Rescue helicopters.

Cambridge – there must be many books set in Cambridge, but the only one I’ve read in recent years is Ninepins by Rosy Thornton set in the Cambridgeshire Fens. I’ve visited Cambridge, but not the Fens, but I learnt a lot about them in this book.

Rome – I’ve been there a few times inspired by my love of history, reading about Ancient Rome, for example in Colleen McCullough’s Master’s of Rome series of novels, and more recently in Mary Beard’s SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.

Paris – I have plenty of books set in Paris to choose from, including Simenon’s Maigret books, Claude Izner’s Murder on the Eiffel Tower set in 1889 when the Tower was newly opened, but my favourites have to be Fred Vargas’s Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg novels. The first one, The Chalk Circle Man is set in Paris where strange blue chalk circles start appearing on the pavements.

Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius, Italy – Robert Harris’s novel, Pompeii begins just two days before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and builds up to a climax. A wonderful book.

Places I haven’t visited but would love to are:

Shetland Isles – to see in person the locations shown in the BBC TV Shetland series based on Ann Cleeves Perez novels with their beautiful descriptions of the landscape, conveying a real sense of place. They are all excellent, an example is Dead Water, the fifth in the series.

Another place I’d love to visit is Venice. I’ve read a few books set in Venice and amongst them are Donna Leon’s excellent Commissario Guido Brunetti detective series, for example in Drawing Conclusions. Venice comes to life for me in the descriptions of the locations. I want to read more of these books and am on the lookout for other books set in Venice.

Dolly by Susan Hill

Published on July 22, 2019July 22, 2019 by Margaret1 Comment

Dolly

Profile Books|October 2012|153 pages|Library book|4*

Dolly: A Ghost Story is a small book – in size and in length and I read it very quickly. Although I think it is a supernatural tale I don’t think it is a ghost story. But it does have an uneasy foreboding and melancholic atmosphere, mainly set in a mysterious isolated country house in the Fens.

There is not much to say about it really. It’s the story of two children, cousins Edward and Leonora who spend a summer with their Aunt Kestrel at her house, Iyot Lock, a large decaying house in the Fens. Edward tries to get on with Leonora, an insufferably mean and spiteful child. Expecting a birthday present of a doll from her aunt, she has a tantrum when she is given a baby doll totally unlike the doll she wanted and breaks its head. From that point on strange things begin to happen with disastrous consequences.

It is well written and I relished the descriptive writing of the landscape, that oppressive feeling that the sky above is falling in on you that I’ve experienced in that area. The tension is there from the start and it gradually builds as events unfold and the storm clouds gather. There are hints of evil as well as spite and malice, in Leonora and what happens to the doll and the cousins is where the supernatural element comes in.

But I think the plot is too formulaic and I could easily foretell what was going to happen. To say what it reminded me of would be too much of a spoiler. The ending, as so often in short stories and novellas comes too quickly, but nevertheless I did enjoy reading it. There is a certain satisfaction in predicting what would happen and being right as opposed to getting to the end and expecting more. It made a pleasurable change as it filled a gap between longer and more demanding books.

Reading challenge: Virtual Mount TBR as it is a library book.

Blood on the Tracks: Railway Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards (British Library Crime Classics)

Published on July 20, 2019 by Margaret21 Comments

I’ve said before that I’m not a big fan of short stories, often finding them disappointing. So I’m glad to say that I enjoyed this anthology edited by Martin Edwards: Blood on the Tracks: Railway Mysteries. Some stories, of course, are better than others.

Blood on the tracks

There are fifteen railway themed stories in the collection and an introduction on classic railway mysteries by Martin Edwards. He has also prefaced each story with a brief biographical note, which I found useful as some of the authors were new to me. I read the collection slowly over a few months, which I find is the best way to approach a short story collection.

Train travel provides several scenarios for a mystery – the restriction of space on trains, with or without a corridor, means that there are a limited number of suspects and they can also provide an ideal place for a ‘locked room’ crime or an ‘impossible crime’ story. This collection also includes a couple of crimes with a supernatural element.

The mysteries are presented in roughly chronological order from 1898 up to the 1950s. The ones I enjoyed the most are by R Austin Freeman, Roy Vickers, Dorothy L Sayers, F Tennyson Jesse and Freeman Crofts Willis.

The Man with the Watches by Arthur Conan Doyle featuring an un-named sleuth, ‘a well-known criminal investigator’, about a man shot through his heart on the London to Manchester train. He had no ticket on him but had six valuable gold watches in his possession. This was first published in The Strand Magazine in 1898.
The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel by L T Meade and Robert Eustace. This was also first published in 1898 in which a signalman is found dead at the mouth of the tunnel. When another man dies in in the same place it looks as though something very strange is the cause of their deaths.
How He Cut His Stick by Matthias McDonnell Bodkin. In this story Lady Detective Dora Myrl investigates the theft of £5,000 in gold and notes from a locked railway carriage.
The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway (1901) by Baroness Orczy, featuring the Old Man in the Corner, an ‘armchair detective’ as he sits in a teashop and tells journalist Polly Burton the solution to the murder of a young woman on the Underground, whilst he fiddles with a piece of string.
The Affair of the Corridor Express by Victor L Whitechurch featuring the railway detective Thorpe Hazell. He investigates the kidnapping of the son of a millionaire.
The Case of Oscar Brodski by R Austin Freeman, an ‘inverted’ detective story, in which the reader knows everything, whereas the detective knows nothing and it all hinges on the significance of trivial details, including fragments of glass, biscuit crumbs, a piece of string and threads of fabric.
The Eighth Lamp by Roy Vickers – an underground mystery about switching off the station lamps after the last train had gone down the line, with a rather spooky supernatural ending.
The Knight’s Cross Signal Problem by Ernest Bramah, in a steam engine crashes into a light train, killing twenty seven people and injuring forty plus. The cause of the accident is a mix up with the signals. I think this is one of the less successful stories for me.
The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face (1928) by Dorothy L Sayers (a Lord Peter Wimsey story), . The body of a man is found on a lonely beach, his face slashed, and with no means of identification. Wimsey’s discussion of the crime with his fellow passengers as they travel into London, helps D I Winterbottom to solve the mystery – a most intriguing story.
The Railway Carriage by F Tennyson Jesse (1931) – this is possibly my favourite story in the collection. It’s a supernatural mystery in which Solange Fontaine, a female sleuth with a ‘feeling for evil’ features meets two passengers on a train. Both the elderly woman, dressed in shabby black and the insignificant-looking man in a grey felt hat seem to be locked in their own thoughts and she feels very ill at ease. Then the train crashes. An excellent story.
Mystery of the Slip-Coach by Sapper (1933), the creator of ‘Bulldog’ Drummond – an example of an ‘impossible crime’ in which the clue of a raw egg supplies the solution to the murder – I wasn’t convinced by this story.
The Level Crossing by Freeman Crofts Willis ( 1933) in which a man is found dead, lying near an unmanned railway crossing. A mystery that shows the effects of unforeseen circumstances even on a well planned murder.
The Adventure of the First-class Carriage by Ronald Knox (1947) a Sherlock Holmes pastiche with an ‘impossible crime’ scenario.
Murder on the 7.16 by Michael Innes, a John Appleby mystery in which he investigates a murder in a railway carriage on trestles, not on wheels, as it is part of a film set.
The Coulman Handicap by Michael Gilbert (1950s). I found this rather confusing as the police follow a woman passing on stolen goods as she uses the Underground to give them the slip. I think this is possibly the one story in the collection that failed to hold my interest.

My thanks to the publishers for my review copy via NetGalley.

Paperback: 358 pages
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (3 July 2018) in association with the British Library
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1464209693
ISBN-13: 978-1464209697
My rating: 3*

My Friday Post: Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers

Published on July 19, 2019 by Margaret17 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

I’m currently reading Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers, the second Lord Peter Wimsey book and one of my 20 Books of Summer.

Clouds of witness

Lord Peter Wimsey stretched himself luxuriously between the sheets provided by the Hôtel Meurice.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

From amid the mud and the fallen leaves he retrieved a tiny glittering object – a flash of white and green between his finger-tips.

It was a little charm such as women hang upon a bracelet – a diminutive diamond cat with eyes of bright emerald.

Blurb:

The Duke of Denver, accused of murder, stands trial for his life in the House of Lords.
Naturally, his brother Lord Peter Wimsey is investigating the crime – this is a family affair. The murder took place at the duke’s shooting lodge and Lord Peter’s sister was engaged to marry the dead man.
But why does the duke refuse to co-operate with the investigation? Can he really be guilty, or is he covering up for someone?

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Library Loans

Published on July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 by Margaret18 Comments

Here are some of my current library books

Lib bks July 2019

Dolly by Susan Hill, sub-titled ‘A Ghost Story’, a novella set in the Fens where two young cousins, Leonora and Edward spend a summer at Iyot Lock, a large decaying house, with their ageing aunt. I’ll be writing more about this book soon.
Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear, a Maisie Dobbs novel. This is no. 12 in the series (I’m not reading them in order). This one is set in 1938 when Molly travels into the heart of Nazi Germany.
The Trip to Jerusalem: an Elizabethan Mystery by Edward Marston, the 3rd book in the Nicholas Bracewell series about a troupe of players travelling England – not to Jerusalem but to an ancient inn called The Trip to Jerusalem – whilst the Black Plague rages.
The Last Dance and other stories by Victoria Hislop. Ten stories set in Greece, described on the book cover as ‘bittersweet tales of love and loyalty, of separation and reconciliation’. I’ve recently enjoyed reading her latest book, Those Who Are Loved, also set in Greece, so my eye was drawn to this book.

The library van used to visit here once a fortnight, but now it only comes once a month. I hope it continues coming, but I fear that its days are numbered, so I make sure I use it whilst I still can.