This book is a mixture of romance, a whirl of social events – balls, masquerades, theatre-going, duels and farce. I mentioned this in my last post and in the comments Geranium Cat explained what a “Tiger” is and pointed me to this site – for more explanations. Dialogue makes up a large part of the book, full of 19th century slang. Over next to Regency England in the early19th century with Georgette Heyer’s Friday’s Child. Jean and Cosette are currently on their way to Paris and a better life I hope, but I don’t expect it will be as I still have about 800 pages left to read. Fear caused her to draw her elbows in at her sides and her feet underneath her skirt, to take up as little room as possible and to draw no unnecessary breath it had become so to speak, the habit of her body, impossible of alteration except that it must grow worse, In the depths of her eyes there was the haggard gleam of terror. Poor Cosette:įear emanated from her so that she might be said to be enveloped in it. The Battle of Waterloo is now over and Jean Valjean has at last escaped from prison and rescued Cosette from her pitiful life with the cruel Thenardiers. I am only too glad that I don’t live in post revolutionary France. Then I’ve jumped back in time to France in the 1820s with Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. This was in 2002 and I can’t find out what happened – does anyone know? There is also a website for Edward Shenton, but I can’t find out how Gladys and Barbara met. I would like to know more about Gladys and Barbara and so far I’ve found these websites – Stillmeadow Friends and also Stillmeadow, where I read that the farm was in danger from development. I first read about Gladys Taber on Nan’s blog and was really pleased when she sent me this book. She thought that this would not be everyone’s ideal. We no longer live by the clock, slaves to time we make our own. So I am particularly grateful for those long intervals of country peace when we see no one, nor stir from our studio except for an afternoon ramble over the hills. For now here is a quote from Barbara’s first letter in the book, writing in January about what she likes about living at Sugarbridge:Ī broken-up day is to me a lost day, and social and business dates, no matter how delightful or important, hang over me with a sense of doom. When I’ve finished it I’ll write more fully about it. Their letters are full of the love of the countryside and their families. Between the letters and the illustrations I’m getting a good picture of their lives. Edward’s drawings illustrate the letters. Stillmeadow is the house in Southbury, Connecticut where Gladys Taber lived and Sugarbridge is the house where Barbara and her husband Edward Shenton lived in Pennsylvania. Stillmead and Sugarbridge is a book to savour and read slowly. I’m limiting my reading to a few letters each time I pick up the book. I’ve been in Pennsylvania and Connecticut with Gladys Taber and Barbara Webster reading their letters to each other from Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge over one year in the 1950s (the book was published in 1953 there’s been no mention of the Second World War so I’m guessing the letters were written in the late 1940s or early 1950s). This week I’ve been travelling in time and place in my reading.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |