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The Print Petticoat
Although staff nurse Joanna Anthony was in love with Richard Everley, a doctor at a neighboring hospital, she was determined not to become too engrossed in any serious affairs until she was certain of her own mind. Then she met another doctor -- Allan Kimouch -- who quickly fell in love with her. She found she liked him too and suddenly the situation became very complicated.
It needed a serious illness to straighten out Nurse Anthony’s emotional entanglements. Which doctor would she turn to at this crisis in her life?
It needed a serious illness to straighten out Nurse Anthony’s emotional entanglements. Which doctor would she turn to at this crisis in her life?
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1954
83 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Lucilla Andrews
85 books9 followersLucilla Matthew Andrews Crichton
aka
Lucilla Andrews, Diana Gordon, Joanna Marcus.
Lucilla Matthew Andrews was born on 20 November 1919 in Suez, Egypt, the third of four children of William Henry Andrews and Lucilla Quero-Bejar. They met in Gibraltar, and married in 1913. Her mother was daughter of a Spanish doctor and descended from the Spanish nobility. Her British father workerd by the Eastern Telegraph Company (later Cable and Wireless) on African and Mediterranean stations until 1932. At the age of three, she was sent to join her older sister at boarding school in Sussex.
She joined the British Red Cross in 1940 and later trained as a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital, London, during World War II. In 1947, she retired and married Dr James Crichton, and she discovered, that he was addicted to drugs. In 1949, soon after their daugther Veronica was born, he was committed to hospital and she returned to nursing and writing. In 1952, she sold her firt romance novel, published in 1954, the same year that her husband died. She specialised in Doctor-Nurse romances, using her personal experience as inspiration, and wrote over thirty-five novels since 1996. In 1969, she decided moved to Edinburgh.
Her daugther read History at Newnham College, Cambridge, and became a journalist and Labour Party communications adviser, before her death from cancer in 2002. In late 2006, Lucilla Andrews' autobiography No Time for Romance became the focus of a posthumous controversy. It has been alleged that the novelist Ian McEwan plagiarized from this work while writing his highly-acclaimed novel, Atonement. McEwan has protested his innocence. She passed away on 3 October 2006. She was a founder member of the Romantic Novelists' Association, which honoured her shortly before her death with a lifetime achievement award.
aka
Lucilla Andrews, Diana Gordon, Joanna Marcus.
Lucilla Matthew Andrews was born on 20 November 1919 in Suez, Egypt, the third of four children of William Henry Andrews and Lucilla Quero-Bejar. They met in Gibraltar, and married in 1913. Her mother was daughter of a Spanish doctor and descended from the Spanish nobility. Her British father workerd by the Eastern Telegraph Company (later Cable and Wireless) on African and Mediterranean stations until 1932. At the age of three, she was sent to join her older sister at boarding school in Sussex.
She joined the British Red Cross in 1940 and later trained as a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital, London, during World War II. In 1947, she retired and married Dr James Crichton, and she discovered, that he was addicted to drugs. In 1949, soon after their daugther Veronica was born, he was committed to hospital and she returned to nursing and writing. In 1952, she sold her firt romance novel, published in 1954, the same year that her husband died. She specialised in Doctor-Nurse romances, using her personal experience as inspiration, and wrote over thirty-five novels since 1996. In 1969, she decided moved to Edinburgh.
Her daugther read History at Newnham College, Cambridge, and became a journalist and Labour Party communications adviser, before her death from cancer in 2002. In late 2006, Lucilla Andrews' autobiography No Time for Romance became the focus of a posthumous controversy. It has been alleged that the novelist Ian McEwan plagiarized from this work while writing his highly-acclaimed novel, Atonement. McEwan has protested his innocence. She passed away on 3 October 2006. She was a founder member of the Romantic Novelists' Association, which honoured her shortly before her death with a lifetime achievement award.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 30, 2021
I expect many things from a Lucille Andrews book, but I certainly don't expect to be horrified that the H was a using manwhore.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2019
This is the first book written by author Lucilla Andrews - written in 1954. It is less a romance and rather a fascinating look at hospital nursing life in this era. It will be interesting to see how her writing develops as I read through her books in the order they were written. Who new that prem babies were fed breast milk with a little brandy! Very realistic and worth reading.
January 25, 2020
Not really a romance novel at all. The emotional dynamics are pretty brutal, and the writer is honest about human motivation and behaviour in a way she never was in any of her subsequent more conventional romance novels. This would make a good TV show, if it wasn't prettified and sentimentalized.
April 29, 2020
This could be classified as a hospital romance novel written in the 1950s, but it's written in the first person and there are three candidates for the hero. Chock full of medical details and - fascinating given that I've been reading a ton of Betty Neels lately - sex: the heroine isn't sleeping with any of her suitors but the nurses, medical students, and doctors are all pretty earthy and there are significant makeout sessions, references to people living together out of wedlock, etc. Really interesting read and I'm looking forward to glomming more of Lucilla Andrews' backlist.
March 17, 2018
Loved Lucilla Andrews as a teenager, absolutely thrilled that her novels are now being released on Kindle - this wasn't the best one but it was a nostalgic read that I enjoyed immensely!
May 7, 2018
In her first novel, Lucilla Andrews conjures up the post war period in health care, providing a scaffold for the romance element of the story, told in the first person by Joanna, the heroine.
The hospital maternity unit is still out in the country after the wartime bombing had hammered the London hospital. There, babies are kept in a nursery away from their mothers, were largely bottle fed - and a premature baby is fed on breast milk and brandy! No leaving hospital hours after giving birth for those mothers!
There is also a definite agenda comparing the big longstanding training hospitals - part of the shiny new nhs - versus the private nursing homes preferred still by the wealthy where the medical care fell far short of the heroine’s high standards. (Compare that with private healthcare nowadays!)
Then there’s TB - an ever present danger then, still a killer of many, the cure involving long periods sleeping outdoors on hospital balconies (or staying in sanatoriums - as did both both my parents in law who both had TB)
And with present day knowledge - you’ll be struck by the ever present cigarette smoke!
The hospital maternity unit is still out in the country after the wartime bombing had hammered the London hospital. There, babies are kept in a nursery away from their mothers, were largely bottle fed - and a premature baby is fed on breast milk and brandy! No leaving hospital hours after giving birth for those mothers!
There is also a definite agenda comparing the big longstanding training hospitals - part of the shiny new nhs - versus the private nursing homes preferred still by the wealthy where the medical care fell far short of the heroine’s high standards. (Compare that with private healthcare nowadays!)
Then there’s TB - an ever present danger then, still a killer of many, the cure involving long periods sleeping outdoors on hospital balconies (or staying in sanatoriums - as did both both my parents in law who both had TB)
And with present day knowledge - you’ll be struck by the ever present cigarette smoke!
November 27, 2018
Pleasant doctor-nurse romance by Lucilla Andrews. This was her first book, and I felt she hadn't quite hit her stride with this book. Her later books are more polished and better structured. However, as with all Lucilla Andrews' books, the wealth of medical detail is very well presented and places the story in authentic contexts. The female characters were appealing, but the male characters were mostly a bit irritating.
July 29, 2022
A nurse works, gets ill and falls out and in love
I read this book about 35 years ago and enjoyed reading about a nurse's work and love life. Things must be very different nowadays but it's very interesting to read how it once was. Lucilla Andrews seems to have started the whole genre of nurse-doctor romances and did it very well. Her books have now started coming out in eBook format which I know means a lot of reading for me.
I read this book about 35 years ago and enjoyed reading about a nurse's work and love life. Things must be very different nowadays but it's very interesting to read how it once was. Lucilla Andrews seems to have started the whole genre of nurse-doctor romances and did it very well. Her books have now started coming out in eBook format which I know means a lot of reading for me.
May 31, 2018
this reminded me of the nursing stories I loved as a teenager. Gentle romance and a little about nursing after the war.
May 5, 2024
The print petticoat.
The best thing I have read for ages. It took an illness to find the love of a good man who was besotted with her in the end .
The best thing I have read for ages. It took an illness to find the love of a good man who was besotted with her in the end .
March 15, 2021
Probably about 2 1/2 stars. I agree with other readers who found it to have a lot of interesting period detail, but rather unsatisfying characters. I guess the main character had to end up with somebody, but it all felt a bit perfunctory.
March 29, 2020
Reading for a research project - found the nurses surprising for the time of writing. Not great as lit, v pleasing as social insight.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews