I’m sure you know about the exciting and excellent Furrowed Middlebrow series from Dean Street Press – if not, hurry to them – and today I’m going to share my post about Alice by Elizabeth Eliot. Below is the beginning of my review – you can read the rest over at Shiny New Books.
Hurrah to Dean Street Press and their continued Furrowed Middlebrow series, bringing back underrated women writers that most of us haven’t heard of before. Elizabeth Eliot certainly fits that category for me, but after reading Alice (1949), I’ll be keen to read more Eliot.
Despite being called Alice, the narrator is Margaret – she first encounters Alice when they are at boarding school together, in the late 1920s. It is immediately clear that Alice has left a significant effect on her schoolfriend, with Alice’s almost artless carefreeness showing options for a bohemian lifestyle that Margaret can’t quite aspire to.
Hi Simon, I know nothing about “Furrowed Middlebrow” but I did play with “Whichbook” which certainly threw up all sorts of books that I have not heard about. Indeed I am not sure I could get it to show me a book I had heard of, let alone read! I was sorry that the options for plot, character, setting were only available independently of the sliders on the main page. Anyway thank you for pointing it out to us.
And I probably meant to put this comment on the more relevant webpage! Apologies.
Glad you enjoyed playing with it, Peter – it certainly comes up with an eclectic and unusual mix, doesn’t it? I wonder how many books are in their database.
I loved this book too, review here https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2019/01/02/book-review-elizabeth-eliot-alice/ The blank voice was brilliant – very Comynsy. I do have her others from my birthday, too – hooray!
Oo, lovely! I would definitely read some others at some point. Now must read the Mrs Tim books…