Cornflower Books

By the light of the silvery moon

    "Most English country towns are picturesque in the moon's eye, but this winding hill was like a part of an old fairy story in the cold yellowish light. Tudor shops with overhanging upper storeys and windows like those on a galleon squeezed prim Queen Anne houses which wore shutters and graceful fanlights. There were mounting blocks and lantern posts at every dozen yards, and through carved archways occasional glimpses of cobbled courts and stone gardens. It was probably the most hackneyed picture-postcard subject in the world, but Campion saw it with the eyes of a child and its charm startled him. The crazy roofs were like witches' hoods huddling together for whispered consultations and the dark windows winked their panes at him from a bygone world."

    From Traitor's Purse by Margery Allingham.

Homes and gardens

    John Harris gardens at Tresillian House (you may have seen him recently on Rick Stein's Cornwall) and in The Natural Gardener he combines a lovely chatty memoir with much practical information on his method of gardening which is to utilise the power of the moon - specifically as its phases affect the water table. Lots of good tips and links for further reading combined with the sort of advice you'd get from a highly experienced, wise gardening friend.

    I posted a passage yesterday from Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen at Home. It's a really lively book - written con brio - and I found it fascinating. It makes me want to go back to the novels and re-read now with a much greater understanding of the sub-text. Incidentally, I bought this book (a while ago) because it fell off a high shelf in Blackwell's and landed at my feet. For those who read significance into such things, I've yet to discover its defining purpose - other than to be a jolly good read!

    The World of Elizabeth Goudge by Sylvia Gower is a reprint by Girls Gone By. It's very much 'in the footsteps of' EG, visiting the places in which she lived and which provided inspiration for her books. Again, it will prompt (re-)reading and provide another layer of understanding, and I'm glad to have it alongside the novels.

Worsley on Brontë on Austen

 

    "Jane's fictional world was so perfectly, minutely and solidly constructed that it took another brilliant and unusual writer, Charlotte Brontë, a generation later, to pull it down. Brontë memorably described Pride and Prejudice as 'a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers - but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy - no open country - no fresh air - no blue hill - no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.' She concludes her demolition job with 'these observations will probably irritate'. Yes, Charlotte Brontë, they do irritate, as you could hardly have written Jane Eyre unless Jane Austen had previously constructed something worthy of demolition."

    From Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley (a most enjoyable read).