Georgette Heyer Fans discussion
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Lori wrote: "I do adore "This Rough Magic." I want to be Lucy Waring and marry into the Gale family.I love the Shakespeare connection. I see Mary Stewart as an education. She was an English instructor at Univ..."
Mary Stewart was an incredibly well educated and intelligent woman. With a First Class honours degree from Durham University, her academic ambitions were stymied by the Second World War. However she still got her Masters degree and then was a lecturer in English Language and Literature at Edinburgh University - no mean achievement for a woman in post - war Britain. In many ways, just like today, she had to be better than the male candidates to achieve success!! Her love of and facility in the English Language shines through every book. In addition, she lived in the most fantastic setting on Loch Awe - which always makes me feel I could (almost), write books like hers!!
Lori wrote: "I do adore "This Rough Magic." I want to be Lucy Waring and marry into the Gale family.I love the Shakespeare connection. I see Mary Stewart as an education. She was an English instructor at Univ..."
Oh, I agree! All of those references were instrumental in my reading the same things that you did, Lori. Although I read any and every thing that came my way, she made me go seeking for the "classics". I wanted to be so well-read that I understood just what the heck she was referring to!
Karlyne wrote: "Although I read any and every thing that came my way, she made me go seeking for the "classics". I wanted to be so well-read that I understood just what the heck she was referring to!"Another author who had that effect on me, at a much earlier age, was Inez Haynes Irwin, author of the Maida books. The characters in Maida's world were always talking enthusiastically about the children's classics they had read.
MaryC wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "Although I read any and every thing that came my way, she made me go seeking for the "classics". I wanted to be so well-read that I understood just what the heck she was referring t..."I don't think I've ever read her!
They're children's books, a series started a bit earlier than most of the children's series and, like the Judy Bolton mysteries, written by a real person rather than the Stratemeyer syndicate. The first (and best, IMO) of the series is Maida's Little Shop. I read the first ten or eleven before I outgrew them.
MaryC wrote: "They're children's books, a series started a bit earlier than most of the children's series and, like the Judy Bolton mysteries, written by a real person rather than the Stratemeyer syndicate. The..."I just wrote them down on my reminder list!
Karlyne, Karlyne, Karlyne!I found it I found it! I got Green Dolphin Country for 20 cents at our local dump's shop!
☆ Ｃａｒｏｌ ☆ wrote: "Karlyne, Karlyne, Karlyne!I found it I found it! I got Green Dolphin Country for 20 cents at our local dump's shop!"
Wow! You gave me goosebumps! And not just because it's nice and chilly this morning! I can't wait for you to read it!
Four, count them, four exclamation marks!
Karlyne wrote: "Four, count them, four exclamation marks!"Heh! eight counting mine! Will be a December read so I can savour it.
It was a favourite read of mine as a tween!
☆ Ｃａｒｏｌ ☆ wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "Four, count them, four exclamation marks!"Heh! eight counting mine! Will be a December read so I can savour it.
It was a favourite read of mine as a tween!"
When you get ready to read it, let me know, and I'll find my copy. I had to pack most of my favorite authors in suitcases and then stack them on the wall for a couple of months, just until I get my bookshelves built up in our retirement cabin. First, though, we have to finish the walls and ceilings! We're going to rent for a year or two down here in the valley, so I don't want to put any holes in the walls or buy bookcases that I won't need later. The suitcases actually look kind of cute! (and the rest of my books are distributed on industrial shelves that my husband will eventually use in his to-be-built shop)
Hana wrote: "Carol, I actually did tune in to the flag fiasco. I sort of liked the fern designs but I hated the black and white schemes and blue and red ferns are kind of weird. Why did no one do a green or sil..."I like the black & white koru design but preferred it in the blue & white colour, because it made me think of the waves or sky & cloud. But the colour choices would have been a bridge too far for most NZers (it was a different blue) & other than Red Peak (a late addition after screams of outrage when we saw the final 4) the choices are hanging in our town & when drooping it (the koru) doesn't hang well. I like Red Peak but it is nearly identical to a company Peak Engineering logo & I would assume we will get sued if that is chosen. The black & white fern flag I could live with. I just loathe the Kyle Lockwood designs & will vote to keep the existing flag if they are chosen.
Basically we were manipulated into not having the silver fern (a type of fern unique to NZ) by people who said it looks like Isis flag, people think it's a feather (like the Japanese care if people think there flag has a red ball!) or those who said they didn't want the All Blacks jersey as their flag. My husband has just been to Italy & all the NZ war graves have a silver fern at the top.
I was silly (like most of us) & just assumed the silver fern on black would be one of the final four.
& thus endeth the lesson!
Oh MY!!! This is the best post because you make it all so clear to me. I wish I could transport to the other side of our ever-so-odd world to give you a big hug.
Hana wrote: "Oh MY!!! This is the best post because you make it all so clear to me. I wish I could transport to the other side of our ever-so-odd world to give you a big hug."No point worrying, I would say there is very little chance the flag will change. I have just been holidaying in a very conservative part of NZ & the people I spoke to want to keep the existing flag.
I'm Canadian born & love the Canadian flag. I'm just sad we have missed the opportunity to forge our own identity. :(
What about a silver fern on Union Jack blue? Or on medium-to-dark green? Too late to suggest it, I suppose.
P. S. Just did some googling. I agree that that stylized fern on the proposed flag looks more like a feather. Well, happy voting!
The final 40 did have a silver fern on green but that didn't get through.The final 40
http://www.nbr.co.nz/sites/default/fi...
Someone told me the Hundertwasser inspired flag on the bottom row was withdrawn, but I don't know if that is true. (Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist who settled in NZ. He did a flag design years ago)
I liked the Maori Jack one but you can be assured that one would have offended somebody!
& my daughter is kicking herself. She designed a NZ flag years ago for her Graphic Design degree. She wasn't completely happy with it but ran out of time. She now wishes she had tweaked it & submitted it.
& my kids were home last weekend so I asked how they were intending to vote. Originally we all wanted our flag to change.My son hates all the new ones so won't be voting in first referendum.
My daughter (a graphic designer) Red Peak
My husband b/w silver fern He would have preferred a silver fern on a black background
Me - Koru but I would have preferred in blue & white.
Andrea (Catsos Person) is a Compulsive eBook Hoarder wrote: "Keep us posted!"I've just checked & the referendum will still be running when we get home.
& just a slight change of plan. We are going up to Auckland later today & staying with my daughter. We have to be at airport fairly early in the morning so this will be easier.
I should be popping in & out over the next few hours but I'll just mention that ChristyB will pop in a couple of times to see how things are going.
I packed yesterday & I'm just about beside myself with excitement!
☆ Ｃａｒｏｌ ☆ wrote: "Andrea (Catsos Person) is a Compulsive eBook Hoarder wrote: "Keep us posted!"I've just checked & the referendum will still be running when we get home.
& just a slight change of plan. We are goi..."
Have a great time!!
Auckland. Wow! Sounds awesome. Too bad about the Koru in blue--that would have been my favorite too. Almost no one has a flag that shade of blue and it makes me think of waves and tropical waters.
I love the Canadian flag, as well--my second favorite in the world ;) I was rather hoping the Toronto Blue Jays were going to make it to the World Series. Now I'll have to root for the Mets since I used to live in New York!
Thanks Hana. I know you mean my trip, but Auckland won't be awesome. I haven't checked recent stats but Auckland used to be the seventh largest city in area in the world. With a relatively small population this translates to a lousy public transport & gridlock on major roads in many areas except early hours of the morning & Sundays.It was a great place to grow up in the 60s & 70s but a lot has changed since then.
Heck, Carol, everything in New Zealand seems awesome to me. Absence/distance/difference all create an amazing allure. And of course there is the long term Lord of the Ring movie hangover effect....Have fun with your dear family and a wonderful time wherever and whatever the flag next waves:)))
Drat...now I have the urge to google the NZ national anthem...At the risk of opening a can of high-end worms...are you still singing the Save the Queen thing?
Hana wrote: "Heck, Carol, everything in New Zealand seems awesome to me. Absence/distance/difference all create an amazing allure. And of course there is the long term Lord of the Ring movie hangover effect......."Ha! Hobbiton is quite near me, but I haven't been yet!
I am old enough to remember standing for "God Save the Queen"in the cinema!
I don't like the National Anthem either, but people in Dunedin are very proud of it & it sounds beautiful in Maori. & after the debacle with the flag, I'm quite sure we won't be changing the anthem!
Being so enthralled with New Zealand, I called the Embassy back when I was in High School, looking to move there. The person I spoke with was very patient with me.
:)
Critterbee wrote: "Being so enthralled with New Zealand, I called the Embassy back when I was in High School, looking to move there. The person I spoke with was very patient with me.
:)"
That is seriously sweet! And I have to confess to wanting to emigrate there often myself...
Karlyne wrote: "Lori wrote: "I do adore "This Rough Magic." I want to be Lucy Waring and marry into the Gale family.I love the Shakespeare connection. I see Mary Stewart as an education. She was an English instr..."
Karlyne wrote: "Lori wrote: "I do adore "This Rough Magic." I want to be Lucy Waring and marry into the Gale family.
I love the Shakespeare connection. I see Mary Stewart as an education. She was an English instr..."
Dear Karylne, I was at the Jane Austen convention when you replied to this. I'm sorry I missed it and just went on with other comments. I'm so glad to find another loyal reader who wanted to get the literary allusions Mary Stewart's characters casually dropped. She was a wonderful "enticer" to read literature.
Lori, I love the way you so casually drop "I was at the Jane Austen convention" into the conversation. Why, yes, I am green. Quite green.
Karlyne wrote: "Lori, I love the way you so casually drop "I was at the Jane Austen convention" into the conversation. Why, yes, I am green. Quite green."Karlyne, you too can go to the Jane Austen convention. I will welcome you with open arms. Indeed, the AGM (Annual General Meeting)is my favorite three days of the year--any and every year. You can look us up at Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA). Our next convention is in Washington, DC, next October. I'm already preparing for it. It will be on "Emma," my sentimental favorite Jane Austen novel.
I love Emma, Lori, but even she isn't enough to tempt me to go to D.C.!I just finished reading Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, A Little Princess (hadn't read it in a very long while), and so of course I had to google her afterwards. Such a life, but the part that I thought funny was that she was a very successful adult novelist, too, and one of her titles was... A Lady of Quality (1893, I think it was)!
The Little Princess is a great favorite of mine. I do wish when they cast the movies they would cast someone who looks like the girl Burnett describes, her looks are part of why the headmistress is resentful of her little princess status, and why she gets doubly mistreated once her fortunes take a turn for the worst. The most recent casting was marginally better than having Shirley Temple playing her, but still. I read a Persephone edition of the Making of a Marchioness and its sequel in the last year or so, and enjoyed its quirkiness. Saw a teleplay of it on PBS soon after.
Kim, thanks for reminding me about The Making of a Marchioness. I just ordered my copy since I have a sense a British classics binge urge is setting in. I did not know about the PBS version--I appreciate the tip.Now, really off topic...has anyone seen the BBC series Indian Summers? Rather a soap opera but with gorgeous sets, costumes and a brilliant ensemble cast. It's showing now on the U.S. PBS site here and I think it's out on DVD as well.
Kim wrote: "The Little Princess is a great favorite of mine. I do wish when they cast the movies they would cast someone who looks like the girl Burnett describes, her looks are part of why the headmistress is..."I remember writing a book report about a million years ago on A Little Princess and comparing it to the Shirley Temple film. Temple was at times a brilliant child actor, but, oh! that screenplay! And Heidi - don't get me started!
Hana wrote: "Kim, thanks for reminding me about The Making of a Marchioness. I just ordered my copy since I have a sense a British classics binge urge is setting in. I did not know about the PBS v..."I just took a quick trip to read the reviews of The Making of a Marchioness, and they really are all over the board. I have a feeling the 2-star reviews are not lovers of Victorian/Edwardian drama...
Karlyne wrote: "Hana wrote: "Kim, thanks for reminding me about The Making of a Marchioness. I just ordered my copy since I have a sense a British classics binge urge is setting in. I did not know ab..."I feel fairly confident in saying that you will like The Making of a Marchioness and its sequel The Methods of Lady Walderhurst Karlyne. If you use an ereader, both of them are in the public domain and thus available free -- the two together are generally called Emily Fox-Seton.
Here is a link to the Project Gutenberg ebook (which has a nice illustrated version available):
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17226
Leslie wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "Hana wrote: "Kim, thanks for reminding me about The Making of a Marchioness. I just ordered my copy since I have a sense a British classics binge urge is setting in. I..."I actually don't use an e-reader unless I have to, because I find them too hard on my eyes. And print smells so much nicer, anyway, right? And I don't have to worry about dropping an electronic in the bath tub, too.
I'm about half-way through The Secret Garden, and the descriptions of child, flora, and fauna, are absolutely wonderful. Strangely enough, I've never read Little Lord Fauntleroy; I think all the mentions in other books of his long curls and velvet and lace must have put me off of the book. It just sounds too cute for words!
I didn't read Little Lord Fauntleroy until I was middle-aged. It surprises me as I read several of her books (including The Secret Garden) over and over as a child.
Leslie, like you I read fave books over and over when I was a child and then as a teenager.
Leslie wrote: "I didn't read Little Lord Fauntleroy until I was middle-aged. It surprises me as I read several of her books (including The Secret Garden) over and over as a child."What did you think of it? I'm enjoying Burnett so much (again) that I'm actually thinking of looking for Fauntleroy.
Karlyne wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I didn't read Little Lord Fauntleroy until I was middle-aged. It surprises me as I read several of her books (including The Secret Garden) over and over as a child."What did you th..."
I liked it but not as much as my childhood favorites!
Leslie wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I didn't read Little Lord Fauntleroy until I was middle-aged. It surprises me as I read several of her books (including The Secret Garden) over and over as a child."..."
There is something wonderful about the characters we meet in childhood; they're just so real that they stay in our hearts for life.
Leslie wrote: "Karlyne wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I didn't read Little Lord Fauntleroy until I was middle-aged. It surprises me as I read several of her books (including The Secret Garden) over and over as a child."..."
I've just got a couple of pages of The Secret Garden left to savor, and I'm seriously impressed with the wisdom in it. Sure, it's got a rather moralizing tone to it at times, but I actually enjoy it - when the author is, as I think Burnett is here, right on!
One thing that puzzles me. Have you ever noticed, Leslie, that there are several references to the children being able to write, but having to sweat over printing? I found that odd, because I thought everyone learned to print first? I'll have to see what I can find out about it.
Well, for Pete's sake! How could I have not known that cursive before printing is a whole childhood education theory? And that it makes a tremendous amount of sense. Well, I'm off to experiment with the grandboy who's on the verge of reading...
You are all most welcome re: reminder about The Making of a Marchioness. It is why we are here, is it not? To share our experience of books, and to discuss them in the context of our lives. I am deeply enmeshed in all books British, am rereading Angela Thirkell, Barbara Pym, Georgette Heyer, and discovering others through the Persephone, Virago, and other publishing reissues. I am really enjoying D.E. Stevenson. In the course of all this, I am introducing my husband to my old favorites, and he is loving them. We find them to be comfort reading, and it helps alleviate our bouts of missing the village where we lived and raised our children in Buckinghamshire. Susan Hill's Simon Serrellier series does this for us, as well, although in a darker fashion--and the G.M. Malliet books do it in a lighter fashion. I adored Burnett as a child, read and reread her books. I remember getting The Secret Garden from the library at our college, it was a dull black leather, very worn, & I could barely make out the title...but, oh!, the magic in those pages. Talk about learning not to judge a book by its cover. These days the covers sometimes have more substance the stories within.
Kim wrote: "You are all most welcome re: reminder about The Making of a Marchioness. It is why we are here, is it not? To share our experience of books, and to discuss them in the context of our lives. I am de..."You're in California, Kim? How did you get there from Buckinghamshire?
The US Navy. My husband and I both served as officers, moved 18 times. Our last tour sent us to Oakland, CA, where he was XO of the Navy Supply Center. I left the Navy after my 3rd child kicked me off the tightrope I was walking with a career and 2 kids. That allowed us to go to the London job, and we lived in a village while my husband commuted by train to Grosvenor Square everyday. I walked the kids to schools in the village, met some of the best friends of my life.
BTW, totally agree about Mary Stewart. I adore her books, read them to tatters, and her quotations led me to so many more books as young teen-ager.
Kim wrote: "The US Navy. My husband and I both served as officers, moved 18 times. Our last tour sent us to Oakland, CA, where he was XO of the Navy Supply Center. I left the Navy after my 3rd child kicked me ...""kicked me off the tightrope" - a better way to describe it than "juggling" career and kids. It sounds like you had an amazing time of it! I've moved a lot (we used to tease my dad that he was a Gypsy, but didn't know it), but only around the Western states. Although moving can be incredibly stressful, it can also be amazingly rewarding, and I think I wouldn't trade my life for a calmer one.
I discovered Mary Stewart as a kid in California, but she moved with me to Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho. I pack my books as carefully as my teapots!
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Everyone, I love Mary Stewart's way with words and the detail. I love the witty repartee. I WANT SIR JULIAN GALE'S WORKING COPY OF "THE TEMPEST." These characters are real friends to me.