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All the Day Long
Maria, born in a Cornish vicarage when Victoria's empire seemed eternal and an unalterable social order was symbolized by the manor on the hill. Louisa, whose first and secret love led her at last to the manor and disaster. Augusta, vain, unlucky and irresistible, who followed only and always her heart and her fancy.
- GenresFiction
576 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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59 people want to read
About the author
Howard Spring
64 books36 followersHOWARD SPRING was an immensely popular and successful writer, who enjoyed a large following of readers from the 1940s to the 1960s; and though, since his death in 1965, he has become rather neglected, his books are still worth seeking out for their terrific storytelling and the quality of the writing. He was certainly painstaking and professional in his approach. Every morning he would shut himself in his study and write one thousand words, steadily building up to novels of around one hundred and fifty thousand words. He rarely made major alterations to his writings (all completed with a dip-in pen!).
Howard Spring started out as a journalist, but from 1934 produced a series of best-selling novels, the most successful of which were My Son My Son and Fame is the Spur.
He was born in Cardiff in 1889 in humble circumstances, one of nine children and the son of a jobbing gardener who died while Howard was still at school. He left school at the age of 12 to begin work as an errand boy, later becoming an office boy at a firm of accountants in Cardiff Docks, and then a messenger at the South Wales Daily News. Spring was keen to train as a reporter, and was largely self-taught --he spent his leisure time learning shorthand and taking evening classes, where he studied English, French, Latin, mathematics and history. He mastered English grammar by studying a book on the subject by William Cobbett.
He worked his way up to become a reporter on the South Wales Daily News, and then in 1911 he joined the Yorkshire Observer in Bradford. By 1915 he was on the Manchester Guardian –proof that he was a young man with much talent. Soon afterwards he was called up for the Army Service Corps, where he served as a shorthand typist. After the war, he returned to the paper in Manchester and worked as a reporter on a paper that allowed journalists to write and express themselves. In 1931, after reporting on a political meeting at which Lord Beaverbrook was the speaker, Beaverbrook was so impressed by Spring's piece (he described the man as ‘a pedlar of dreams’) that he arranged for Spring to be offered a post with the Evening Standard in London, where he eventually became a book reviewer –a successor to Arnold Bennett and J.B. Priestley.
At the same time, Spring was developing his ambition to become a full-time writer. He thought he could do a lot better than many of the so-called authors whose books he was asked to review! His first book, Darkie and Co, came out in 1932 (in this period he wrote a number of children’s books for his sons), followed by his first novel, Shabby Tiger (September 1934) and a sequel, Rachel Rosing (1935).
His first major success came in February 1938 with My Son, My Son (originally titled O Absalom, but, happily, changed when William Faulkner used a similar title in the United States), and in 1939 he was able to move to Cornwall to become a full-time writer (he and his wife, Marion, eventually settled at The White Cottage in Fenwick Road, where they remained for the rest of their married life). In 1940, his best-known work, Fame is the Spur, the story of a Labour leader's rise to power, was published. This is without doubt a superb novel, and probably the one book by Spring that is still being read more than 40 years after his death.
During the war years Spring wrote two other novels, Hard Facts (1944) and Dunkerley's (1946), and, subsequently he published There is No Armour (1948), The Houses in Between (1951), A Sunset Touch (1953), These Lovers Fled Away (1955), Time and the Hour (1957), All The Day Long (1959) and I Met a Lady (1961). Spring also produced three volumes of autobiography--Heaven Lies About Us (1939), In the Meantime (1942); and And Another Thing (1946)—which were later published in one volume as The Autobiography (1972). His last book was Winds of the Day (1964).
It is relevant to note that many of his books had Manchester settings, which led to him being referred to as ‘The Manchester Man’, and
Howard Spring started out as a journalist, but from 1934 produced a series of best-selling novels, the most successful of which were My Son My Son and Fame is the Spur.
He was born in Cardiff in 1889 in humble circumstances, one of nine children and the son of a jobbing gardener who died while Howard was still at school. He left school at the age of 12 to begin work as an errand boy, later becoming an office boy at a firm of accountants in Cardiff Docks, and then a messenger at the South Wales Daily News. Spring was keen to train as a reporter, and was largely self-taught --he spent his leisure time learning shorthand and taking evening classes, where he studied English, French, Latin, mathematics and history. He mastered English grammar by studying a book on the subject by William Cobbett.
He worked his way up to become a reporter on the South Wales Daily News, and then in 1911 he joined the Yorkshire Observer in Bradford. By 1915 he was on the Manchester Guardian –proof that he was a young man with much talent. Soon afterwards he was called up for the Army Service Corps, where he served as a shorthand typist. After the war, he returned to the paper in Manchester and worked as a reporter on a paper that allowed journalists to write and express themselves. In 1931, after reporting on a political meeting at which Lord Beaverbrook was the speaker, Beaverbrook was so impressed by Spring's piece (he described the man as ‘a pedlar of dreams’) that he arranged for Spring to be offered a post with the Evening Standard in London, where he eventually became a book reviewer –a successor to Arnold Bennett and J.B. Priestley.
At the same time, Spring was developing his ambition to become a full-time writer. He thought he could do a lot better than many of the so-called authors whose books he was asked to review! His first book, Darkie and Co, came out in 1932 (in this period he wrote a number of children’s books for his sons), followed by his first novel, Shabby Tiger (September 1934) and a sequel, Rachel Rosing (1935).
His first major success came in February 1938 with My Son, My Son (originally titled O Absalom, but, happily, changed when William Faulkner used a similar title in the United States), and in 1939 he was able to move to Cornwall to become a full-time writer (he and his wife, Marion, eventually settled at The White Cottage in Fenwick Road, where they remained for the rest of their married life). In 1940, his best-known work, Fame is the Spur, the story of a Labour leader's rise to power, was published. This is without doubt a superb novel, and probably the one book by Spring that is still being read more than 40 years after his death.
During the war years Spring wrote two other novels, Hard Facts (1944) and Dunkerley's (1946), and, subsequently he published There is No Armour (1948), The Houses in Between (1951), A Sunset Touch (1953), These Lovers Fled Away (1955), Time and the Hour (1957), All The Day Long (1959) and I Met a Lady (1961). Spring also produced three volumes of autobiography--Heaven Lies About Us (1939), In the Meantime (1942); and And Another Thing (1946)—which were later published in one volume as The Autobiography (1972). His last book was Winds of the Day (1964).
It is relevant to note that many of his books had Manchester settings, which led to him being referred to as ‘The Manchester Man’, and
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 5, 2015
Howard Spring is a wonderful author, comparable to the likes of RF Delderfield, Diane Pearson and Margaret Kennedy. His writing awes me yet leaves me feeling somewhat subdued and in need of hot chocolate to cheer me up.
The thing is, he writes so REAL. And sometimes (ok, most times) I want an escape from real. Or at least a sugar coated real. Or at least an improbable and impossibly unrealistic but happy ending. I'm weird like that.
Being that this is a very long book, covering the life of one spinster from age five to seventy four, two world wars, and multiple other characters, you need to go into this understanding that a lot of people will die (and those who live dont neccesarily achieve their goals or desires). Sometimes I wondered if the book would end when there were no characters left.
So far, my review sounds like I didn't really like it. But I did. I particularly loved the sections with the children punting and camping along the Cornish coves and rivers, sleeping on bracken and catching fish for a campfire supper. (With the inevitable biscuits, chocolate, fried bread, tea and tinned pineapple to add to the feast). What a magical childhood, I could almost taste it.
As the story progresses, Maria (a plain young woman whose gentle beauty no Rochester discovers) exists as a sort of looker on while everyone else lives their adventures and tragedies. Yet, whenever a soft shoulder or a firm hand is needed, who but Maria should be called upon to handle the situation.
However, as much as we desire Maria to find her soul mate, (and yes I kept hoping ~ever the optimist), when we see the many characters who love and lose throughout the course of the novel, the reader ponders whether Maria mightn't be the real winner afterall. I'm still pondering...
A poignant, thoughtfelt story.
CONTENT: Suitable for all
The thing is, he writes so REAL. And sometimes (ok, most times) I want an escape from real. Or at least a sugar coated real. Or at least an improbable and impossibly unrealistic but happy ending. I'm weird like that.
Being that this is a very long book, covering the life of one spinster from age five to seventy four, two world wars, and multiple other characters, you need to go into this understanding that a lot of people will die (and those who live dont neccesarily achieve their goals or desires). Sometimes I wondered if the book would end when there were no characters left.
So far, my review sounds like I didn't really like it. But I did. I particularly loved the sections with the children punting and camping along the Cornish coves and rivers, sleeping on bracken and catching fish for a campfire supper. (With the inevitable biscuits, chocolate, fried bread, tea and tinned pineapple to add to the feast). What a magical childhood, I could almost taste it.
As the story progresses, Maria (a plain young woman whose gentle beauty no Rochester discovers) exists as a sort of looker on while everyone else lives their adventures and tragedies. Yet, whenever a soft shoulder or a firm hand is needed, who but Maria should be called upon to handle the situation.
However, as much as we desire Maria to find her soul mate, (and yes I kept hoping ~ever the optimist), when we see the many characters who love and lose throughout the course of the novel, the reader ponders whether Maria mightn't be the real winner afterall. I'm still pondering...
A poignant, thoughtfelt story.
CONTENT: Suitable for all
March 1, 2013
Too often, when I pick up a past favourite book, I find it has lost the magic for me; I have grown and changed, and the book has not. I picked this book out of my bookcase to read again, after maybe 35 years; I could remember some of it, and some character studies, but not much more.
I find myself enchanted all over again; there must be an ageless quality to it - it was an 'old' book when I first read it, and it is even further from our times now. I think its charm lies mostly in its character drawings; all the protagonists are real; some will never be forgotten, and not always the main characters either. One old man, the local sexton and gravedigger, is described as a 'complete human being', and that I had never forgotten. He still shines out in that way now, though he is dead before the halfway mark in the book.
The book is written in the first person, and details the life of a woman, from childhood to old age; an onlooker at life so much, but heart-wrenchingly human. I won't give more details, because the plot meanders quietly, as a life does, and it needs to be read in the same manner. But if you want a book that will engage, stay with you, and be loved, and if you love real characters and real life, and relationships, read this book.
I find myself enchanted all over again; there must be an ageless quality to it - it was an 'old' book when I first read it, and it is even further from our times now. I think its charm lies mostly in its character drawings; all the protagonists are real; some will never be forgotten, and not always the main characters either. One old man, the local sexton and gravedigger, is described as a 'complete human being', and that I had never forgotten. He still shines out in that way now, though he is dead before the halfway mark in the book.
The book is written in the first person, and details the life of a woman, from childhood to old age; an onlooker at life so much, but heart-wrenchingly human. I won't give more details, because the plot meanders quietly, as a life does, and it needs to be read in the same manner. But if you want a book that will engage, stay with you, and be loved, and if you love real characters and real life, and relationships, read this book.
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July 28, 2011I didn't want this book to ever end! It's one of those books that as soon as you are finished reading - you want to start all over again! Thank you Howard Spring!
July 9, 2023
En mi opinión el libro se hace bastante tedioso pues hay demasiado personajes, en los que se profundiza muy poco, y sobre todo la autora de sus memorias habla muy poquito de sus sentimientos, nos cuenta los hechos acaecidos sin preguntarse el por qué de ello, sus personajes no muestran qué les hace tomar esas decisiones.
Aparte de retratar una sumisión y un dejarse llevar por la protagonista, no hay ninguna crítica social, política, moral, y eso que narra acontecimientos que transcurren en ambas guerras mundiales. Sí que al final del libro hace una ligera crítica al trato racista de los lugareños contra la señora Flech, alemana que huye del nazismo, por inmiscuirse en sus asuntos, que sus asuntos son haber impedido una violación de una niña, lugareña, por un lugareño.
Creo que sus seiscientas y pico páginas son excesivas para lo que narra.
Aparte de retratar una sumisión y un dejarse llevar por la protagonista, no hay ninguna crítica social, política, moral, y eso que narra acontecimientos que transcurren en ambas guerras mundiales. Sí que al final del libro hace una ligera crítica al trato racista de los lugareños contra la señora Flech, alemana que huye del nazismo, por inmiscuirse en sus asuntos, que sus asuntos son haber impedido una violación de una niña, lugareña, por un lugareño.
Creo que sus seiscientas y pico páginas son excesivas para lo que narra.
December 8, 2024
My favorite fiction book of all time. There is no point to it, other than in life things happen. In a long life lots of things happen. This book so takes you to the time and place of the characters and you forget you are living your own life.
June 26, 2016
Page by page, Howard Spring can write well: the characters spring out, the Manchester and Cornish locations are efficiently invoked. But for a whole book the central character's passivity in seeing people come into and out of her life is just frustrating. It's like real life, no doubt, to be attached to people and then, decades later, to be attached to others, and perhaps that's the point of this epic. For a novel it's disappointing. I didn't care after a bit.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews