Published in "The Book And Magazine Collector", No. 179, February 1999
The novelist, E.M. Delafield (1890-1943), was the least pretentious
of writers. Having struck upon the idea of lightly guying herself
"Diary of a Provincial Lady" (1930) — a mix of Jane Austen and Punch —
she carried it through with such brilliance, wit and pace that the book
became a best-seller and inspired three sequels. Since then, the
quartet has never been out of print for long, and it remains one of the
most popular titles on Virago's list.
Delafield was a strikingly uneven writer, but in all her works she
shows an acutely accurate social sense. She was obsessively interested
in vanity, self-deception and daydream, and had an almost cruel
conception of parents in relation to their children. She also had a
gothic streak that peaked in her atmospheric study of female
criminality, "Messalina of the Suburbs", a novel which shocked many of
her fans.
Born into Victorian 'country house' society, she ended her days in the
Devonshire countryside, a middle-class, provincial lady. Apparently
untroubled, her life was punctuated by a desperately unhappy stint as a
novice in a Belgian convent, where she found and lost her vocation
within the space of a year. Later, her experiences as an invited guest
on an isolated Soviet collective farm — a unique experience for someone
of her sex, age and social background — was vividly recorded in "Straw
without Bricks" (1937). Among the obstacles she faced there was a
six-seater lavatory over an open cesspit, with no lock on the door.
E.M. Delafield was born Edmee Elizabeth Monica de la Pasture at
Steyning in Sussex; on 9th June 1890. Until she became a published
author, she was called 'Edmee' by her family, even after her friends
had come to know her as Elizabeth. She was the daughter of the Count
Henry Philip Ducarel de la Pasture, head of an aristocratic French
Catholic family who had settled in England after the revolution, and
Elizabeth Bonham, better-known as the novelist, Mrs Henry de la
Pasture. (Her most famous work, "The Unlucky Family" [1907], was
recently reprinted.) The count's wife was not only 21 years younger
than her husband, but of a livelier and more ambitious nature. Like her
mother, Elizabeth was to marry a much younger man, and to support her
husband through her writing.
She was educated by a series of French governesses, later amalgamated
into the tearfully exotic 'Mademoiselle' of "Diary of a Provincial
Lady". Later, Delafield would change schools at the drop of a hat and
for no apparent reason. Surviving the almost simultaneous death of her
father and her launch as a debutante at the age of eighteen, the young
Delafield was presented by her mother with a new stepfather. Sir Hugh
Clifford, a stronger character than the kind but ineffectual Henry de
la Pasture. The couple were married in the crypt of Westminster
Cathedral in 1910.
Delafield's earliest writings had been in the grand romantic style rejected by her mother, who sensibly advised her to write from her own experience (though, even as a seasoned novelist, Delafield never quite lost her taste for resolving plots by the intervention of physical disaster). Growing up in Chester Square in London, Delafield and her sister had one single imposed aim: to find husbands of the same class with the means to support them.
However, Delafield had other ideas. On 9th June 1911, she came of
age
and entered a Belgian religious order which even her biographer. Violet
Powell — to whose work on Delafield this article is much indebted — did
not dare to name. "When I left" Delafield wrote years later, "the Mere
Immaculee and Soeur Marthe said goodbye kindly and affectionately. They
felt sure, they said, that one day I should come back. I never did. I
dream still, from time to time, of being a postulante in the Noviciate
in Belgium, and finding myself unable to come away."
Delafield's second start — and real life — began in Exeter in 1914. She
had been accepted as a VAD worker. The pay, £1 a week,
represented financial liberty to a girl who had never worked before,
and she had enough free time to write, which she did at every
opportunity. Perched on a bench high up in Rougemont Park in the summer
of 1915, she began work on her rather savage first novel, "Zeila Sees
Herself". Warts and all, it marked the arrival of a new and original
English novelist. The book revolves around the personal vanity of its
heroine, Zeila — who approaches every situation intent on making the
impression which is expected of her — and her tendency to daydream.
Spotting a winner, William Heinemann wrote to say that he would like to
publish the book "after the War, paper being scarce", but Delafield was
insistent. She called on him personally, and the novel was issued to
great acclaim in March 1917.
Heinemann's instinct for catching the popular mood resulted in
Delafield putting aside her second novel in favour of a more topical
look at "The War Workers" (1918), based on her own experiences in her
local Supply Depot. The book, which came with the usual disclaimers
about not being based on fact, contained an -unvarnished portrait of a
tyrannical controller, beating the hell out of her subordinates as they
crouched over a smouldering fire in the common room, or queued to fill
hot water bottles from a kettle over a decrepit gas ring. And the
reviews marked an advance on those for "Zeila". The Times Literary
Supplement judged Delafield to be female by her accurate use of the
word 'camisole', while Punch, who had been wild about "Zeila", hoped
that her portrait of the tyrannical Miss Vivian in The War Workers
would be surpassed by that of her next victim.
Begun in Exeter in June 1916 and finished a year later, Delafield's
third novel. "The Pelicans", finally appeared in September 1918. This
extraordinary book was an agonising account of a woman's conversion to
Catholicism, her acceptance of the veil and her eventual death. The
pelican itself — a mother bird who feeds her children with drops of
blood from her own breast — symbolised the Church. So successful was
the novel, that it caught the attention of a literary agency, who
poached Delafield away from Heinemann for her next novel.
"Consequences" (1919), which was published by Hodder & Stoughton.
Heinemann were furious at her defection, but they had only themselves
to blame: Delafield had never been placed under contract to them.
Needless to say, the novel itself was largely autobiographical and
concerned a young girl who refuses to admit, even to herself, that it
is the magnetism of the Mother Superior, rather than her love of God,
that makes her want to enter a convent. The Times Literary Supplement
thought that the dice had been weighted too heavily against the
heroine, Alex, whose friends eventually give her up in despair. Punch
suggested that the book might be called "anti-conventual", even
compared to "Zeila", but enjoyed a new aspect of a stimulating and
original writer.
Shortly before the reviews of her new novel appeared, Delafield met
Paul Dashwood, probably at Waterloo Station, and they married soon
afterwards, on 17th July 1919. The bride was 29, the groom 37. Paul
Dashwood — on whom Robert, the stolid husband of the "Provincial Lady"
books, was based — was regarded by the bride's family as a bit of a
clodhopper, but his work in West Africa, for which he had been awarded
the MBE, had been successfully carried out under the most difficult,
even dangerous circumstances. And Delafield, with an unerring instinct
for what would make her happy, fell in love with him at once.
In June 1919, a month before her wedding, Delafield dedicated her first
novel for Hutchinson, "Tension", to her mother, a final offering before
she left with her husband for Singapore and her mother departed for
West Africa. Whether or not her mother appreciated the portrait of the
domineering Lady Rosalind, the book's most forcefully-drawn character,
remains in question.
Her war work had given Delafield an insight into the language and
attitudes of classes other than her own, and enabled her to write "The
Heel of Achilles" (1921), which concerns a lower middle-class girl
marrying 'above herself. This book — a fairytale in which Cinderella
does all the scheming for herself — has a unique gaiety and sparkle.
Completed during her pregnancy (her only son, Lionel, was born on 13th
August 1920), "Humbug" (1921) represented types Delafield feared "to be
far from extinct — amateur educationalists". In a reflection of her own
life (Delafield's only sibling, Bettina, was disabled), her heroine
suffers from the pain of being spoilt by her parents, while her
handicapped sister is put to one side. Skirting dangerously close to
autobiography was always one of Delafield's greatest pleasures, but
whether her new husband appreciated the dedication to himself of a book
in which the newly-married heroine finds her husband unsympathetic on
all but the simplest levels, is impossible to say.
Delafield's next novel was "The Optimist", begun in August 1921 and
completed the following March. In Violet Powell's perceptive words,
this is "in some ways the oddest of her books. It is largely dominated
by Canon Morchard, the Optimist of the title, who at first shows signs
of becoming a rival in tyranny to Samuel Butler's Mr Pontifex." After a
struggle, and to the surprise of readers everywhere, the Canon begins
to display somewhat unlikely symptoms of saintliness.
Around the same time, Delafield herself made a quiet decision to
transfer her allegiance from the Church of Rome to the Anglican
communion. Her future writings were often placed upon the Index of the
Church she had left, but it certainly benefited her as a writer to be
freed from its moral restraints.
Delafield had long wanted to return to rural England, and in September
1923 her wish was fulfilled when the Dashwoods took a lease on Croyle
House near Kentisbeare in Devon. Elizabeth found peace here, and it
provided her with a sanctuary until the end of her life, no matter what
the vicissitudes of her literary career. The Delafield's second child,
Rosamund, was born at Kentisbeare on 15th February 1924.
Shortly afterwards, Paul was appointed agent for the estate owned by
the Honourable Mrs Adams, the model for Lady Boxe in the 'Provincial
Lady' saga. In her Who's Who entry for 1934, Delafield listed
criminology as one of her recreations. She had become the first woman
to sit on the Bench at nearby Cullompton, causing the immediate
resignation of an elderly male member. The upshot of her appointment
was the gothic shocker, "Messalina of the Suburbs" (1924), a fictional
treatment of the Thompson and Bywaters case of the previous year, which
saw Ethel Thompson hang, along with her lover, for the murder of her
husband.
With a startling change of pace, and drawing on her experiences in the
Far East, Delafield then produced "Mrs Harter" (1924), a study of the
impact made by an alien personality on a closed country community.
Around this time, Delafield was photographed with her children:
Rosamund, a bouncing baby, and the square-set, round-faced Lionel.
Delafield's face has a somewhat stressed look, suggesting the
insecurity that dogged her, and perhaps a lack of confidence in her
parenting skills in an era when middle-class children were still
largely brought up by servants.
By now, Delafield was becoming more deeply involved in the village life
that would later produce the Provincial Lady. On 14th April 1924, she
was unanimously elected President of the Women's Institute at
Kentisbeare, a job she retained until the end of her unexpectedly sort
life.
If "Mrs Harter" had seen her paring down the prolixity of her earlier
style. "The Chip and the Block" (1925) capitalised on the new-found
technique. Its prose is very clear and direct, using short words, and
few of them — a method depending for its success on simplicity and
precision. Delafield used it again in "Jill" (1926), another superb
reconstruction of a rickety menage, and also for "The Way Things Are"
(1927). A snapshot of this period shows her daughter, Rosamund,
standing in the middle of the family group smiling cheerfully, while
her brother Lionel looks more detached. Like the Provincial Lady's
husband, Paul Dashwood seems to have more interest in his pipe than in
being photographed, and you almost expect him to quote Robert's famous
answer to most questions: "It depends."
Delafield herself smiles towards the camera, stooping, her bobbed hair
shadowing her piquant, pointed face, still at heart the debutante who
had been too tall for most of the men with whom she danced. With "The
Way Things Are", perhaps the strangest book of her pre-'Provincial
Lady' career, she imposed a stiffer discipline on herself and kept the
romantic part of the plot under control. The result was a sad heroine
called Laura, whose life was remarkably like Delafield's, though
domestic pinpricks were replaced by genuine horrors. Despite comic
flashes, it remains a dull, rather grey, book.
Even now, Delafield — like Jane Austen — had no writing room of her
own, preferring to work at a table near the drawing-room window, while
children and dogs romped distractingly outside and visitors passed by
on Bench or WI business, or invited her (like the Provincial Lady) to
throw open her "magnificent grounds (three flower borders and a tennis
court)" to the local fete.
By the mid-Twenties, Delafield's work was appearing across all media:
print, radio and theatre. She saw everyday life in terms of comic
desperation, but her journalistic output was indeed amazing considering
the other calls on her time, and the fact that she always had at least
one novel on the boil. When she dedicated "The Suburban Young Man"
(1928) "To All Those Nice People who have so often asked me to Write a
Story about Nice People" she had, as usual, her tongue so firmly inside
her cheek you doubt if it will ever emerge. As Time and Tide pointed
out, the people might be nice, but the author had placed the characters
in a nasty emotional hole.
Delafield had begun her career with three books published by Heinemann,
then moved to Hodder & Stoughton for one novel, "Consequences". Her
next twelve books — produced in a remarkably short timespan of eight
years — appeared under the Hutchinson imprint. She then moved to the
firm of Macmillan, with whom she was to remain for the rest of her
life. "What is Love?" (1928), a loosely-put-together study of the joys
and pains of first love, was her initial book for her new publishers.
The second, "Women are Like That" (1929), was a collection of stories,
one of which, 'Oil Painting, circa 1890', is as grim a tale as she ever
wrote, a sort of trial outline of the most poignant parts of her
greatest novel, "Thank Heaven Fasting".
It was probably through Mrs Dawson-Scott, a writer with many
literary
connections, that Delafield first met the legendary Margaret,
Viscountess Rhondda, founder and editor of the feminist magazine. Time
and Tide. Lady Rhondda's attachment to feminism even extended to the
use of a letter bomb in Monmouthshire and a brief spell in prison in
Usk, where she forced her own release after five days by means of a
hunger strike. In 1920, she had founded Time and Tide, a strongly
liberal magazine with a policy of supporting feminist causes.
Suddenly, Lady Rhondda needed a space-filler, some light "middles" in
loose serial-form, and Delafield promised to think of something. And
so, in her beautiful old house in Devon, she began to jot down the
routine fusses and follies of the Provincial Lady: "November 7th.
Plant the indoor bulbs. Just as I am in the middle of them. Lady Boxe
calls. I say untruthfully, how nice to see her, and beg her to sit down
while I just finish the bulbs . . ."
At once, Delafield discovered her true vocation: that of a comic
writer. From then on, the bulbs become a running gag. As the days pass
and new characters are introduced, the bulbs are put in the cellar,
moved to the attic, overwatered, underwatered, attacked by the cat,
broken by Robert (the Provincial Lady's long-suffering husband) as he
brings down suitcases, and advised upon by every visitor. Finally, they
shrivel up and die, whereupon Lady B (who masses hers by the stairs) is
told that they have been sent to a sick friend in hospital. And
gradually, as you read on, despite the short sentences, the simplicity
and the unpretentiousness of the prose and subject matter, you realise
the subtlety of Delafield's talent — naturally satirical, with a
marvellous ear for dialogue and an unerringly accurate social sense.
Once started on the bestselling jottings in 1929, Delafield could
barely snatch time to complete her other projects — the novel. "Turn
Back the Leaves" (1930), and, even more exciting to Delafield, her hit
West End play, a Provincial Lady-like piece called "To See Ourselves".
Within a week of starting her diary, the Provincial Lady noted that she
had received the 'Book of the Month', "the history of a place I am not
interested in by an author I do not like". Needless to say, life
imitated art with a vengeance when, in December 1930, "Diary of a
Provincial Lady" appeared in book-form and was promptly chosen
by The
Book Society as the 'Book of the Month'. The light pink dustjacket
featured a silhouette by Arthur Watts of the Provincial Lady at her
desk. Watts also provided the internal illustrations, including amusing
portraits of the various family members. The (rather nasty) Howard
Baker editions of 1969 and 1978 retained these illustrations, but
Baker's (much thinner) 1982 edition features artwork by Kenneth W.
Baxendale.
Once started on the series, Delafield was not allowed to abandon it.
The books enchanted everyone. Here, and in America, the demand always
persisted for more and more chronicles of the modest, fumbling but
curiously dry-witted heroine. Her creator was never to wholly escape
from her again and, indeed, never will. Like George and Weedon
Grossmith's Footer family ("Diary of a Nobody"; see BMC 78), her quiet,
self-deprecating character belongs to the world, and if none of
Delafield's more poignant creations survive, the Provincial Lady is
certainly an immortal.
Six months after "Diary of a Provincial Lady" had had its amazing
triumph, and while the second instalment of the Lady's adventures was
appearing in Time and Tide, Delafield published her nineteenth novel, a
lighter, almost knockabout book called "Challenge to Clarissa" (1931).
By the end of the same year, she had achieved the liberation of a small
London flat of her own in Doughty Street, just like the Provincial
Lady. Free (for the moment) of domesticity, she welcomed guests at a
huge Time and Tide party and enjoyed the success of "Thank Heaven
Fasting" (1932), perhaps her greatest, and most certainly her harshest,
novel. (It was reissued by Virago in 1988.) Reviewers were more at ease
with "Gay Life" (1933), which featured a couple who deserved all the
bleak satire their creator could subject them to.
Delafield had a second shot at the West End with "The Glass Wall"
(1932), but the play — on the subject of religious vocation — stopped
at Swiss Cottage. A lecture tour to the States provided material for
"The Provincial Lady in America"
(1934), which was a worthy follow-up
to the Diary and its sequel, "The Provincial Lady Goes Further" (1932).
Margaret Freeman provided the engaging artwork for the American book,
Arthur Watts having illustrated the second volume.
Pausing to edit an authoritative source book on "The Brontes: Their
Lives Recorded by their Contemporaries" (1935) for the Woolfs' Hogarth
Press, Delafield came up with yet another excellent, bitter book called
"Faster! Faster!" (1936). Here
she set out to lampoon herself, the
successful woman on whom so much and so many people depended. And she
did it ruthlessly, with admirable detachment. By the time the book
appeared, however, Delafield had already sailed for Russia and the
Commune near Rostov on Don.
Her American publisher, Cass Canfield, the force behind "The Provincial
Lady in America", had suggested that she should go to Russia for six
months on a collective farm and record the experience in a humorous
book. Delafield's convent education had left her with an ineradicable
conviction that the thing which she did not want to do must be done,
and so she accepted. It was certainly an inauspicious time to visit the
'Workers' Paradise'. The previous year had seen the infliction of
man-made famine on the kulaks of the Ukraine, which had strengthened
Stalin's grip on the U.S.S.R. The revolution was set to devour, not
only its children but its parents, and the net designed to contain
foreign travellers like Delafield was being continually tightened.
However, 'Comrade Dashwood', as she was known, made the most of it.
Pasta, eggs and the excellent bread which she helped to knead in the
bakery provided the staple diet (the meat was inedible), but otherwise
conditions were primitive, and sexual behaviour likewise. Delafield
soon became used to hearing stories about the Armenian who had taken
nearly all the girls behind the pig-house, although luckily this
Casanova of the Steppes left the commune a few days after her arrival.
Comrade Dashwood soon became something of a legend herself, thanks to
her regular recourse to a lipstick and a tiny looking-glass. Her
account of this trip. "Straw without
Bricks" (1937), is quite frank
about the visual splendours and physical miseries endured by travellers
to the U.S.S.R in the Thirties. Faced with the problem of exporting a
manuscript of 30,000 words, Delafield had stripped it from its
cardboard cover and fixed it, in just bearable agony, between her spine
and suspender belt to go through customs. She was then struck by the
one thing all returning visitors experienced: diarrhoea. The U.S.
title, "I Visit the Soviets: The
Provincial Lady in Russia", was
designed to catch the attention of the thousands who had attended her
American lectures.
"The Bazalgettes" (1935) was an oddity — a pastiche of a Victorian
novel, published anonymously. (Delafield even attempted to review it
herself.) But she was back on form for "Nothing is Safe" (1937), a
horrible indictment of parents who, deciding to divorce, forget the
happiness or security of their young children.
As war broke out, Macmillan persuaded her to resurrect the Provincial
Lady, whom she had buried in an interview the year before. The
Provincial Lady in War-Time (1940) brilliantly captured the mix
of
apprehension, confusion and plain boredom which made the first months
of the Second World War so trying, and introduced the world to the
insufferable high spirits of Granny Bo-Peep, sunshine of the Adelphi.
On 4th November 1940, Delafield's son, Lionel, was killed in an
accident at his Infantry Training Centre and was buried at Kentisbeare
with full military honours. His premature death at twenty effectively
killed the Provincial Lady. With Robin — his 'Provincial Lady' persona
— gone, Delafield told Macmillan that it was impossible to continue the
series. She was devastated.
New novels were forthcoming — "No One Now Will Know" (1941) and "Late
and Soon" (1943) — but, after a colostomy at the end of 1941, Delafield
was constantly distressed by pain. Her immaculate hair had turned to
silvery grey and her once great beauty had gone. She saw her publishers
only in a darkened room and, on 2nd December 1943, she died at the age
of 53. Two days later, E.M. Delafield was buried in Kentisbeare
churchyard under the big yew tree, as the Provincial Lady had always
planned, beside her dearly loved son.
Collectors have been slow to spot Delafield's special merits, but they
are starting to snap up the four 'Provincial Lady' books. Copies in
dustjackets are now scarce, particularly of the first two titles, with
Arthur Watts' inimitable illustrations, and the final book. "The
Provincial Lady in War-Time" (whose jacket features a splendid cartoon
by Illingworth of Robert vainly attempting to fit cook with a gas
mask). Watts was a great friend of Delafield, and years before she had
sat for him at Croyle. All he had to do to get the right expression for
his work was to ask her to imagine the rigours of a family holiday to
Brittany. The resulting drawing shows Robert and his wife sitting
together on a sofa in the casino in Dinard, and Delafield's look sums
up the attitude of the English abroad: absolute horror.
Return to EMD Index page
'The Diary of a Provincial Lady' (ISBN 0-86068-522-5), containing all
four 'Provincial Lady' books, is published in paperback by Virago,
price £8.99.
---------------------------------------------
E M DELAFIELD UK BIBLIOGRAPHY
A guide to current values of First Editions in Very Good condition
without/with dustjackets. 'PROVINCIAL LADY' BOOKS DIARY OF A PROVINCIAL
LADY (illustrated by Arthur Watts) (Macmillan, 1930)..............
E10-E15 (£30-£40)
THE PROVINCIAL LADY GOES FURTHER (illustrated by Arthur Watts)
(Macmillan, 1932)
....................................................................................................................£10-£15
(£20-£30)
THE PROVINCIAL LADY IN AMERICA (illustrated by Margaret Freeman)
(Macmillan, 1934)
..............................................................................................................,.....£10-£15
(£20-£30)
THE PROVINCIAL LADY IN WAR-TIME (illustrated by Illingworth)
(Macmillan, 1940) .........£8-£10 (£15-£20)
THE PROVINCIAL LADY (omnibus: contains 'Diary of a Provincial Lady',
'The Provincial Lady Goes
Further', 'The Provincial Lady in America' and 'The Provincial Lady in
War-Time'; foreword by Kate
O'Brien) (Macmillan, 1947)
.......................................................................................................£8-£10
(£15-£20)
NOVELS ZELLA SEES HERSELF (Heinemann, 1917)
............................................................................£10-£15
(£40-£60)
THE WAR-WORKERS (Heinemann, 1918)
...............................................................................£10-£15
(£40-£60)
THE PELICANS (Heinemann, 1918)
..........................................................................................£10-£15
(£40-£60)
CONSEQUENCES (Hodder & Stoughton,
1919)......................................................................£10-£15
(£40-£60)
TENSIONS (Hutchinson, 1920)
...................................................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£30)
THE HEEL OF ACHILLES (Hutchinson, 1921)
...........................................................................£8-£10
(£20-£30)
HUMBUG (Hutchinson,
1921)......................................................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£30)
THE OPTIMIST (Hutchinson,
1922).............................................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£30)
A REVERSION TO TYPE (Hutchinson, 1923)
............................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£30)
MRS HARTER (Hutchinson,
1924)..............................................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£30)
MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS (includes short stories and play) (Hutchinson,
1924) ....£10-£15 (£40-£50)
THE CHIP AND THE BLOCK (Hutchinson, 1925)
......................................................................£8-£10
(£25-£30)
JILL (Hutchinson, 1926)
..............................................................................................................
£8-£10 (£25-£30)
THE WAY THINGS ARE (Hutchinson, 1927)
..............................................................................£8-£10
(£25-£30)
THE SUBURBAN YOUNG MAN (Hutchinson, 1928)
...............................................................
£10-£15 (£40-£50)
WHAT IS LOVE? (Macmillan,
1928)............................................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£25)
TURN BACK THE LEAVES (Macmillan, 1930)
...........................................................................£8-£10
(£20-£25)
CHALLENGE TO CLARISSA (Macmillan, 1931)
........................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£25)
THANK HEAVEN FASTING (Macmillan,
1932)...........................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£25)
GAY LIFE (Macmillan,
1933)........................................................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£25)
THE BAZALGETTES (anonymous) (Hamish Hamilton,
1935)................................................£10-£15
(£30-£40)
FASTER! FASTER! (Macmillan,
1936)........................................................................................
£8-£10 (£15-£20)
NOTHING IS SAFE (Macmillan, 1937)
........................................................................................
£8-£10 (£10-£15)
NO ONE NOW WILL KNOW (Macmillan,
1941)..........................................................................
£8-£10 (£15-£20)
LATE AND SOON (Macmillan, 1943)
..............................................................................................
£3-£5 (£8-£10)
SHORT STORIES
THE ENTERTAINMENT (Hutchinson,
1927)...............................................................................
£8-£10 (£20-£30)
WOMEN ARE LIKE THAT (Macmillan, 1929)
.............................................................................£8-£10
(£20-£30)
WHEN WOMEN LOVE (Macmillan, 1939)
.....................................................................................£4-£6
(£10-£15)
LOVE HAS NO RESURRECTION and Other Stories (Macmillan,
1939).................................... £4-£6
(£10-£15)
PLAYS
TO SEE OURSELVES: A DOMESTIC COMEDY (French,
1932)................................................................
£8-£10
THE GLASS WALL (Gollancz, 1933)
............................................................................................£4-£6
(£10-£15)
ditto. Paperback Edition (Gollancz,
1933).................................................................................................
£4-£6
OTHERS
MAN, PROUD MAN (with Mary Borden and Susan Ertz) (Hamilton, 1932)
............................ £8-£10 (£15-£20)
GENERAL IMPRESSIONS (Macmillan,
1933).............................................................................
£8-£10 (£15-£20)
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN IN VICTORIAN FICTION (Hogarth Press, 1937)
........................£15-£20 (£30-£40)
AS OTHERS HEAR US: A MISCELLANY (Macmillan, 1937)
.................................................... £8-£10
(£15-£20)
STRAW WITHOUT BRICKS: I VISIT SOVIET RUSSIA (Macmillan,
1937).............................. £10-£15
(£20-£30)
PEOPLE YOU LOVE (Collins, 1940)
...........................................................................................
£8-£10 (£10-£15)
THIS WAR WE WAGE (Emerson, U.S.A., 1941)
......................................................................£10-£15
(£20-£30)
AS EDITOR
THE TIME AND TIDE ALBUM (Hamish Hamilton,
1932)...........................................................
£8-£10 (£15-£20)
THE BRONTES: THEIR LIVES RECORDED BY THEIR CONTEMPORARIES
(Hogarth Press, 1935)
.............................................................................................................£15-£20(£30-£40)
ESSENTIAL READING Powell, Violet: THE LIFE OF A PROVINCIAL LADY: A
STUDY OF E.M. DELAFIELD
(Heinemann, 1988)
......................................................................................................................£6-£8
(£10-£15)
54