If you’ve been reading Stuck in a Book for a while, then you’ll probably have come across regular mentions of Edith Olivier’s wonderful 1927 novella The Love Child. It’s about a spinster who accidentally conjures her imaginary childhood friend into life – and it’s a moving, wonderful, beautiful little book. Large sections of my DPhil were on it, but I hadn’t expected many people to hear of Edith Olivier except through my yammering about it – and so I was thrilled and surprised when I saw that a biography of Edith Olivier and Rex Whistler was forthcoming.
This is all information I’ve blogged about before, but it’s my preamble to sending you over to Shiny New Books (a prompt which has taken me a while, what with heading off to America and suchlike) to read my review of A Curious Friendship and the fab piece Anna wrote for us about researching the book.
Do go and read those, but the summary is: whether or not you’ve heard of Olivier and Whistler, this book is a must. Definitely one of my reads of 2015.
Thank goodness, because after searching every library I belong to for it, I ordered a copy from across the pond. Looking forward to spending time with it this summer.
Excellent, Audrey! I do hope you enjoy it.
Very much enjoyed your well-written review at SNB. Whistler also did some lovely illustrations for Beverley Nichols’ books.
Thanks Victoria!
And I knew I’d seen his work somewhere on my shelves – thanks for the reminder of his appearances on Nichols’ works.
I was so fascinated by this story when Anna spoke about it on Woman’s Hour recently. I think it’s only available in hardback at this point so might not fit into my luggage allowance plans but I definitely will be buying a copy at some point!