Oh Cluny

Thomas12 Comments

 
Isn’t it often the case that one never has enough time to properly scour a used bookstore?  Sure, there may be enough time for a good, satisfying browse, but how often is there enough time to really go looking for the needles in the haystack?  Last August in Maine when we spent two weeks on Islesboro I had all the time in the world to really comb through the fine used bookstore on the rather small island. When we first visited the store I did all my usual checks for my favorite authors and didn’t really come up with much that was interesting. In fact, at first browse I was quite disappointed. Here was a wonderful bookshop in an old one room school building filled to the ceiling with mainly hardcover used books and they didn’t seem to have anything that I wanted.  But given the fact that we were (happily) captive on the island I realized I had time to really make sure that I wasn’t missing anything. So, with nothing to hurry me along and no other distractions save the beauty of the island, I actually took the time to look at every single spine in the shop.

Over the course of a couple of different browsing sessions I managed to come up with a pretty tall stack of books that I found interesting or unique, and quite a bit more non-fiction than I would typically find.

In that stack were two novels by Margery Sharp, an author I had never heard of. (As it turns out, in addition to her 26 novels for adults, she also wrote 14 for children, including The Rescuers.)  In any case, I must admit that the first one that I came across went into my purchase pile because of the cover. How could any anglophile, urban planner, historic preservationist pass up this cover?

I was actually a bit worried that the book might be nothing but pap, and the price was closer to antiquarian than used, but I couldn’t resist the cover art. And then I noticed “Author of Cluny Brown” at the bottom which immediately made me think that Britannia Mews may be a lesser book than the obviously popular Cluny Brown. And it just so happened that they had a copy of Cluny Brown on the shelf as well. So, with my OCD kicking in, I thought I really should start with Cluny Brown and see if I liked it. But how could I pass up the Britannia Mews cover even if Cluny did come first?  And I really shouldn’t buy both, they were about $30 a piece, what if I didn’t like Margery Sharp? But then I worried that if I only bought one and found out I loved Margery Sharp, wouldn’t I be annoyed that I only bought one of these pretty first editions?

I am happy to say that now that I have read Cluny Brown, I am glad I bought both and am wondering how to get my hands on the rest of Sharp’s novels. Based on the cover, and the fact that I had never heard of Sharp, I was thinking it might be some enjoyable, mindless, 1940s chick-lit. But it is pretty clear from early on that Sharp has a few edges. Cluny Brown is a young woman of about 19 whose parents died when she was young and has been living with her Uncle Arn, a genteel plumber who never knows quite what to do with Cluny and her potentially dangerous naivete. He worries that Cluny doesn’t know her place in life, having committed the class crime of going to tea at the Ritz. It doesn’t matter to Uncle Arn that she paid for the experience with her own money. After an episode where Arn finds her (innocently) emerging from the bathroom of a bachelor client he decides he needs to save Cluny from herself and sends her out of London to go into “good service” in Devon.

What follows is a bit of an upstairs, downstairs tale. But Cluny and her irascible high spirits would never survive in the starchy world of Gosford Park, or Upstairs, Downstairs (or even the rather lame, poorly written world of Downton Abbey) if not for the fact that domestic help was pretty hard to come by after in the years between the wars. The housekeeper, Mrs. Maile, overlooks many a transgression, knowing that replacing Cluny might be more trouble than it is worth. One knows from the start that Cluny is going to end up in clover by the end of the book (in fact her real name is Clover), and though one can, and does, guess at two or three outcomes, the final result is not what one expects. So surprising to me was the final twist that I feel a bit of a spoiler for even mentioning it.
Cluny Brown has Persephone written all over it. Cozy and fun, but with a definite feminist outlook. Now I can’t wait until the TBR Double Dare is over so I can read Britannia Mews. And maybe this summer’s trip to Maine will yield a few more Sharps for my library.

My Trollopian Work Life (or getting paid to have fun)

Thomas11 Comments

Imagine this plot: In 1869 a well respected superintendent of an insane asylum is accused of profiting from his position, defrauding employees, neglecting the patients under his care, and even the non-return of two horses that wandered onto the grounds of the asylum. Months of letters, testimony, and committee investigations ensue in order to determine if the charges have any basis in fact.

Then imagine that the story is told with all the twists, turns, and commas of Victorian syntax with no little attention to bureaucratic details.

Could this be a lost Trollope manuscript? Some mix of The Warden and The Last Chronicle of Barset? It could be, but it isn’t. It is actually a description of a real life scenario I stumbled across in the course of my job. You see, my job for 2012 is to research and write a book-length history of an insane asylum that dates back to 1855. After a few years working as an urban planner on a project to redevelop said insane asylum, and after working for a few more years dealing with the historic preservation issues related to that same project, I now get to write this history to help mitigate the adverse effect the redevelopment is having on the asylum which is a National Historic Landmark. (You may remember me posting some pretty cool historic photos of this asylum last spring.)

So the majority of my work day is spent in places like the National Archives and the Library of Congress. The archive work is particularly fascinating because I am working with primary documents that read like excerpts from a Trollope novel and are filled with lots of fantastic (mundane) Trollopian details.

How about this letter from 1857 offering the superintendent first refusal on a soon-to-be vacant (and better) pew at Christ Church for only $26 per annum?

Or how about the story suggested by this invoice for the superitendent’s wife’s funeral? Twenty carriages at $5 a piece, 21 pair of raw silk gloves, $20 for freezing the body. The superitendent was well paid at $2,500 per year, but this $304 funeral was more than 10% of his annual income.

And I must say, reading plenty of Trollope over the years has prepared me well for sifting through thousands of letter from the second half of the the 19th century. What it didn’t prepare me for, however, was deciphering the sometimes cryptic handwriting which can make for really slow going. I can’t wait until the typewriter is invented and the hospital buys one. Maybe my eyes will uncross when I get to those years.

One of the more fascinating, and Trollopian letters I have come across relates to the plot I described earlier. So again imagine this plot where the superintendent is fending off attacks on his professional integrity when he gets a letter from one of his former clerks George Kellogg, who is now farming in Jamaica, Vermont. In that letter Kellogg tells the superintendent of a visit from a man he judged

…to be about thirty years of age, light hair, red side whiskers, quite a full face (judge caused by whiskey), he had a small bottle of whiskey with him and he offered me some the first thing. It being nearly gone he drank it himself.

The farmer goes on at some length to describe how the visitor attempted to bribe him to go back to Washington to testify against the superintendent.

The bribe was like this: 1st, I was to have my old place with better pay &c, 2nd, If one or two thousand dollars would induce me to tell all I knew for, said he, you know enough of Dr. Nichols to send him to State’s prison…

Kellogg is taken aback by the charges and the man’s bald attempt to bribe him.

I told him he was a stranger to me and that I knew nothing about him or his friend whom he was working for and that I should be very careful what I said or did. He then said that his friends name was General M. McGowan who was a surgeon in the army a was third or fourth cousin of General Grant [presumably the newly elected President Ulysses S. Grant] and was a very fine man, and a great friend of Secretary [of the Interior] Cox and a man who would surely be appointed in Dr. Nichols’ place.

What amazes me about this scenario is that in 1869 someone was so intent on procuring the position of superintendent of this asylum that they sent this inebriated boob 451 miles north to try and bribe a former employee–and one who was still on good, personal terms with the superintendent. In the end, like a good Trollope novel, the superintendent was cleared of all charges but with an admonishment or two to keep better account books going forward.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are so many fascinating aspects to this project.  Life in a Victorian-era insane asylum (Wilkie Collins anyone?) The role of the hospital during the Civil War. A pioneering institution in the understanding of brain pathology in the insane with over 2,500 brain specimens collected over the years. The place where Ezra Pound was kept for 15 years after being charged with treason after WWII. And the list goes on.

I don’t think I have ever been so excited to go to work each day.

Bits and Bobs (the book edition)

Thomas9 Comments

 

Miss Buncle wrote other books
You may recall my delight (and perhaps your own) with Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson. I loved that book from cover to cover. The follow-up Miss Buncle Married was nowhere near as amusing or original but I still enjoyed reading it. After reading the first of the Buncles I went online and bid on a bunch of DE Stevenson novels despite having been warned by one of you that most, if not all, of her non-Buncle fiction was pretty much just straightforward romantic novels set in the Scottish lowlands. And behold, I give you Sarah’s Cottage. A straightforward romantic novel set in the Scottish lowlands. This is a novel where everything always ends up just the way it should and where every character has two dimensions whether he or she needs the second one or not. Lots of breathless excitement and despair! (That is an ironic exclamation point.) And like Miss Buncle, lots of feverish book writing into the wee hours of the morning leading to a book that becomes a hit and goes into a third printing before being published in America. And like Miss B, it was published under a pseudonym as well. One thing I love to hate (and I think Nevil Shute does this as well) is when authors insert a character’s name into dialogue in places that don’t seem plausible. Who knows maybe it used to be so, but I find this awkward. For instance, if you were having a conversation with me and I asked: “Would you like to come to tea?” would you answer: “I’d love to come.” Or would you answer “I’d love to come, Thomas.” And in the same conversation would you also say “Do you want children of your own, Thomas?” or “Do you find it difficult, Thomas?” or “Is ‘Beric’ a family name, Thomas?” There are only two of us in the room. You don’t need to keep addressing me by name. I know who you are talking to. There is no confusion.

Still, if you want a cozy story where even the bad stuff exists only so you can be happy later, then you should pick up some non-Buncles.

I think I loathe D.H. Lawrence
I am 111 pages into Women in Love, the third Lawrence novel I have read, and I really think I hate it, and in retrospect have hated every word of Lawrence I have ever read.  I wish I could explain why. I find it tedious and detached and depressing. I think Lawrence could have used some meds. Maybe if I read 10 pages a day I can hold my nose and finish it.

Joseph Conrad seems to be thinking about hopping on the Loathe Train as well
First Heart of Darkness, and now The Secret Agent. In comparison, I prefer Conrad to Lawrence, but I can’t say that I have enjoyed reading him. I will say that I kind of enjoy every other paragraph of Conrad. I will find myself enjoying the story for a minute, but then something about his prose style makes me glaze over and wonder if I should clip my nails or do the dishes. Unlike Lawrence, however, I could actually see myself picking up another Conrad novel, if just to cross Lord Jim off the Modern Library list.

A lame, gay, two-fer
While England Sleeps is the David Leavitt novel that became notorious because Stephen Spender thought that it resembled his memoirs a little too much. Leavitt claims he was inspired by Spender’s life, but I think that some of the similarities that Spender pointed out are a little too close to not suspect monkey business on Leavitt’s part. This book had more than a few flaws but I must admit I found it enjoyable and even quite emotional in a place or two. I think I even teared up a bit at one point.

The second gay book I read was Felice Picano’s The Book of Lies. Remember when I busted Julia Glass’ butt over all of the inaccuracies and dubious notions in her book The Whole World Over? Well this is the gay version of that critique. Different in details, but the same sloppy mind. Perhaps the most egregious error was the notion that someone could go pick up a baby at the airport. That is, one of the characters would go to JFK to pick up babies that had been sent from Central America. Really? The INS has a counter with a bunch of unaccompanied babies in bassinets just waiting to be picked up like a piece of lost luggage? ARE YOU SERIOUS?  How about a PhD candidate teaching a summer session and the students (and others) all call him professor. I have three degrees from three universities, and I never heard a grad student called professor in any context. And then the author has the notion that a mechanism exists that will control the speed of your car. Picano posits that for a stretch of familiar road with varying speed limits his character’s car has a speed governor that can be preset to change when the speed limit changes. In 2000 I drove across the country in a moving van that had a speed governor and the only thing it did was keep me from being able to go faster than 65 mph. A cruise control requires that manually set it each time the speed limit changes. And a GPS unit can tell me what the speed limit is and what my speed is, but it sure can’t automatically make my car go that speed. And even if that did exist on some model of car I am unfamiliar with, it sure didn’t exist in 1998.

Too Good to Miss: Marge Piercy
Although the title made for a few self-conscious Metro rides, I thoroughly enjoyed The Longings of Women by Marge Piercy. This is the fourth Piercy book I have read and I have liked all of them (this one probably the least so). They all have multiple women, usually in the Boston area, who are building their lives after some sort of male perpetrated malfeasance. They are warm, smart, realistic but ultimately uplifting, and never feel like male bashing. One of the characters in this one gives a very believable account of what it would be like to be homeless after a long marriage ends in divorce. More of you should be reading her. Try Three Women, The Third Child, Fly Away Home, or The Longings of Women.

Is the UK ready for me doing this?

Thomas13 Comments

  
Given our interest in visiting some out of the way places and having a generally out of the way kind of time when we go to England in May, we decided to rent a car. I have driven all around France with no problems, but I have never attempted to drive on the wrong…I mean left side of the road before.

I have no problems with roundabouts, but can I do one this way?  I am thinking of renting extra air bags…if only that were possible.

So, look out my pedestrian friends of the sceptred isle, Toonces is going to be on the road.

EEEK!

Thomas2 Comments

 
One should not start writing a post when one is still half asleep. This morning before I left for work I started to write a post, but it was far from finished. And now all of you will see the draft in your feed readers despite me taking the post down…

I promise the real post, when it is done will be great.

What would you do?

Thomas22 Comments
Williams College in the gorgeous Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts.

Back in April of 2009 before most of you had even heard of My Porch, I posted something that I still find fascinating. John and I had been on a road trip where we talked about how much fun it would be to spend a semester studying whatever we wanted to. A kind of academic fantasy camp. No real worries about grades or anything stressful, just the chance to learn about something you never had time for in school.

(I am aware that more than a few of you are still in the halls of the academy, so this may be less interesting to you…but you still may want to play along)

 

Q: If you could spend a semester studying anything you wanted, what kind of classes would you take?

Rules:

1. Assume everything else in your life is manageable (e.g, your
family isn’t neglected, bills are paid, you don’t have to work, etc.)

2. Choose classes that you would want to take just for the fun of taking them. That
is, stay away from stuff that would get you a promotion at work or help you to
finish a degree or something like that. This is your chance to explore anything
you want.

3. Extra points for being specific.

4. Double extra points for telling me where you would want to spend your semester.

Amherst College, also in Massachusetts.

A: If I had to narrow it down to one semester, this would be my course schedule:

This was my list in 2009.

  • Survey/History of British Lit
  • History of Victorian and Edwardian England
  • Infrastructure 101 (A more in-depth, much smarter version of all those Discovery channel shows about utilities and transportation and stuff like that.) This class includes a two week “field trip” to learn about European passenger rail infrastructure.
  • Photography
  • Choir

As to where, I am tempted to say Cornell because it is a nice campus in a beautiful setting and is
kind of isolated. Cozy and big at the same time. Or some other similar campus in the Northeast.

Those are all still interesting to me, but I have some other things that have me captivated at the moment.  My course list today would look something like this:

  • Survey of American History from 1850 to 1900 – not generally a period in history I am naturally drawn to, but it would dovetail really nicely with what I am researching at work these days–which is fascinating–and will be blogged about in the near future.
  • A research methods class. I have had one or two of these in past, but I could use a refresher as an adult who is actually paying attention.
  • I would still do the Infrastructure class I mention above.
  • Geometry – I was terrible at it in high school–I felt confused my whole sophomore year in Mr. Varty’s class. And I generally disliked math, but for some reason this has been interesting to me lately. I am not sure it would fill a whole semester as an adult, so maybe I would throw in an Algebra refresher course as well.
  • Some kind of art class–like the kind we had in junior high which included everything from drawing to woodblock carving to pottery to painting.
  • Choir
  • And I still think I would do the survey of British Lit. Kind of tempted to narrow it down, but I think I would still like to take in the whole sweep of British Lit to put my reading into a broader context and framework.

As for place, I would still tend to say somewhere like Cornell. Not only is it beautiful, but I like how isolated it is relative to the the hustle and bustle of downstate New York. Even though it is set overlooking the town of Ithaca, the overall feeling is still one of a retreat. I also think I would want a larger school like Cornell, or at least one with a big research library that might be harder to find at a small school. And oddly, as much as I love places like Cambridge and Oxford, I see myself doing this at an American university.

I got to spend two lovely, interesting years here at Cornell. I could easily do another semester.

 
Now tell me, what would you do? Go ahead, click the comment button…

Maybe you would prefer Berkeley and its proximity to San Francisco.

Books will be blogged about soon, but first: My Weekend

Thomas10 Comments

   
Despite what you are about to read, I did actually get some reading done this weekend. In fact I have many books about which I wish to bend your ear. However, my weekend was full of other activities as well.  We were in Austin, Texas visiting John’s brother and family.

For the first time in about 15 years I went bowling. John hadn’t been in about 30 years. We weren’t good, but we had lots of fun. And the food (nachos, fries, club sandwich, washed down with Dr. Pepper) was really tasty.

We also went to an arcade where I spent all my time playing the Shrek pinball machine which was oddly satisfying.

Then there was the 3-D showing of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace which I had never seen before. The dialogue and much of the acting was rubbish, but it was still kind of enjoyable. (Except for the racist depiction of the happy/stupid Jamaican-esque Jar Jar Binks and the racist depiction of the evil villains with their Asian-inspired broken English.)

And finally, I got to help John’s nephew finish his giant, complicated Lego Death-Star. That was tons of fun. I was worried I was doing too much of it, but it turns out, he was more interested in playing with the finished product than actually putting it together. So hurray.

Bits and Bobs (the "it’s been a long time" edition)

Thomas15 Comments
Upset c.1887
Joseph Decker (1853-1924)
de Young Museum, San Francisco

Scanner Wars and Sunday Painting
It has been a while since I have done a Bits and Bobs. But it has been an even longer time since I have done a Sunday Painting. You may remember several months ago when I wrote about getting into a physical altercation with my scanner/printer. Well, I wasn’t kidding and I only just now have replaced it. Actually John got if for me for Christmas (rewarding bad behavior) but it took a while to arrive and I finally decided to hook it up this weekend. (“Hook it up” isn’t the right phrase considering it is wireless.)

So in honor of having a scanner again, I decided to revive Sunday Painting, my occasional feature where I post a scan of one of the many art postcards I have collected over the years. How ironic then, that my first one out of the gate is one that I didn’t actually scan. I fell in love with this painting at first sight. If I could own and hang in my house one work of art that is currently in a major collection, it would be this one. Kind of a strong statement given all the amazing art I could choose from, but there is something about this painting that makes me covet it. Maybe it is because the de Young Museum which owns it, doesn’t provide a postcard of this little lovely, and the artist is relatively obscure and I can’t find a color image in any book that makes me want to own the real thing so badly.  And just look at the image itself. Similar to my taste in fiction, I love paintings with lots of detail of mundane objects and subjects. Can you just imagine the owner of this box of candy?

This poster is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee
Should the Queen be getting all the attention? Well, perhaps more than a poster. And to be perfectly truthful, this poster won’t have its Diamond Jubilee until next year. Since it is the Queen’s accession to the throne that is at the 60-year mark, not her 1953 coronation, this poster, has to wait until next year to really celebrate. But when you think about it, that is probably a good idea. The poster won’t have to share the limelight with all the Queen’s festivities. (And I did use the new scanner for this image.)

Poster designed by Gordon Nicholl
National Railway Museum, York

Will I get Jubilee-fever when I am in England?
A few months ago John and I were pondering our travel schedule for the year and we decided to go somewhere for about eight days in the May/June time frame. Being the kook that I am, I almost love planning travel more than doing it, so running through the list of options once dates are chosen is perhaps one of my favorite things in life. After sifting through the possibilities on our very long wish list, and balancing them against our plans for next year, we soon settled on a trip to England. We thought it would be a great time for John to see some gardens. It seems the only time we ever make it to England these days is over the Veteran’s Day holiday and gardens aren’t quite as interesting in the cold, foggy days of November as they are in the Spring.

All of this is prelude to say that I wasn’t even thinking of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee or the possibilities of related events and exhibits when we bought our plane tickets. But then last week I came upon this post by Meg at Pigtown Design just up the road in Baltimore all about the Jubilee and some of the events surrounding it. Like one at the V&A of Cecil Beaton portraits of the Queen. But that ends in April. Shoot. I suppose I could go up to Leed’s which is where it goes next, but that is too far off our itinerary. Or I could try the Diamond Jubilee Pageant at Windsor Castle, but that really isn’t my cup of tea. The one I really, really want to see is an exhibition of her diamonds at Buckingham Palace. But that doesn’t start until the end of June.

Queen Victoria’s Small Diamond Crown

Thankfully there is The Queen: Art and Image at the National Portrait Gallery (one of my favorite museums in London) that will actually be running while we are there.

Lightness of Being, 2007
Christine Levine

And speaking of Baltimore (and queens)
Last night we watched The Filthy World. A one-man show by Baltimore’s most infamous native son, John Waters. Everyone knows that he is the genius behind the film Hairspray. But some may not know that he is the king of really filthy films that are all about really bad taste and have been banned and censored all over the world. Well, his one-man show is hilarious. Waters is brilliant and talks non-stop for an hour and half going over the highlights of his childhood and career. But please, unless you know about the early John Waters and his penchant for the irreverent and filthy, do not rent this one. Or don’t say that you weren’t warned.

But where are the books?
It has been a while since I posted a book review and I am not sure when that is going to change. My reviews have never really approached the standards of real book reviews, (Hmm, why don’t we hyphenate that? I bet it was at some point. Isn’t the noun “book” serving as an adjective? Teresa, what say you?) being more like personal musings on my reading experience. But I think I may be at a point where I don’t feel like writing them. Originally I started doing them so I would better remember what I had read. But I could do that without trying to turn them into reviews. My work has taken a very interesting, but brain-intensive turn (more on that in the weeks to come) that makes me want to turn off a bit more at night rather than trying to provide analysis or description of what I am reading. I think I may come up with some abbreviated format that frees up time for posts like this one and more time for reading.

A Century of Books

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Simon made the button too. (At least I am assuming he did.)

When Simon first posted about the A Century of Books challenge it appealed to my listy ways, but since it requires reading 100 books in one year, I thought better of it. I have in the past read more than 100 books in one year, but that was when I was only working three days a week (aka the salad days). The basis of the challenge is to read one book from every year of the 20th century.  As I said, I wasn’t going to participate, but then I thought I could tie it into my TBR Double Dare and see how many years I could knock out. But still, I did not take up the challenge.

Then a few weeks ago when John was out of town, I stayed up until about 3:00 am. One of the things I felt the need to do instead of sleep was to make a spreadsheet listing each year of the century and then filling in the blanks with the 60 or so books that are in my TBR Double Dare pile. But I still wasn’t sure if I was going to participate. But then Simon’s recent post about the Modern Library’s book of the 200 best books since 1950 really got me interested. So I’m in.

And by the by, the results of my list making with my TBR Double Dare stash are kind of interesting. I was able to fill in about 37 years. Of course for some years I have more than one title in that TBR pile. With four books, 1946 had the most overlap, 1934 and 1940 have three titles each, and 1908, 1929, and 1990 each had two.  And the teens are most under represented with a big goose egg.

As you will see from the list below the 1940s is the most complete decade based on my TBR Double Dare pile.  But keep in mind I have about another 200 unread books in my library that I will be able to add to the list once April 1st rolls around. It will be kind of cool to see if I can fill all 100 years without resorting to outside books.

I have no idea if I will come anywhere close to finishing, but we all love a list so here it is.

I have already completed the one’s that are crossed out. When there was more than one title for any given year in my TBR Double Dare, I only listed the one I am most likely to read. And those marked “ML100” are on the Modern Library’s list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century, which I have been working my way through since 1997.

[UPDATE: I have been updating this list as I finish books so the text above may no longer be entirely accurate.]

1900 – Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (ML100)
1901 – Kim by Rudyard Kipling or Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
1902 – The Immoralist by Andre Gide or The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
1903 – The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
1904 – The Golden Bowl by Henry James (ML100)
1905 – Professor Unrat by Heinrich Mann
1906 – Young Torless by Robert Musil
1907 – The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (ML100)
1908 – Love’s Shadow by Ada Leverson
1909 – Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide or Martin Eden by Jack London
1910 – Impressions of Africa by Raymond Rousse
1911 –
1912 – The Charwoman’s Daughter by James Stephens
1913 – T. Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett
1914 – Dubliners by James Joyce or maybe Penrod by Booth Tarkington
1915 – The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela
1916 – Under Fire by Henri Barbusse
1917 – Gone to Earth by Mary Webb or Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley
1918
1919 – Consequences by E.M. Delafield
1920 – Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence (ML100)
1921 –
1922 – The Judge by Rebecca West or Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf
1923 – The Ladies of Lyndon by Margaret Kennedy
1924 – Some Do Not by Ford Madox Ford (ML100)
1925 – No More Parades by Ford Madox Ford (ML100)
1926 – A Man Could Stand Up by Ford Madox Ford (ML100)
1927 – Rhapsody by Dorothy Edwards
1928 – Last Post by Ford Madox Ford (ML100)
1929 – The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
1930 – Angel Pavement by J.B. Priestly or The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield
1931 – Saraband by Eliot Bliss or Poor Caroline by Winifred Hoitby
1932 – Young Lonigan by James T. Farrell (ML100)
1933 – Frost in May by Antonia White or Ordinary Familes by E. Arnot Robertson
1934 – The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell (ML100)
1935 – Judgment Day by James T. Farrell (ML100)
1936 – Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner or Eyeless in Gaza by Huxley
1937 – Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary by Ruby Ferguson
1938 – Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan
1939 – Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
1940 – Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather
1941 – The Living and the Dead by Patrick White or Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
1942 – Clark Clifford’s Body by Kenneth Fearing
1943 – Gideon Planish by Sinclair Lewis
1944 – Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp
1945 – The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
1946 – Every Good Deed by Dorothy Whipple
1947 – Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (ML100) or Not Now, but Now by MFK Fisher
1948 – The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
1949 – Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
1950 – Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
1951 – A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor
1952 – The Village by Marghanita Laski
1953 – Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
1954 – Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
1955 – The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
1956 – The Flight From the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch
1957 – The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham or Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
1958 – A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
1959 – The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley
1960 – The Bachelors by Muriel Spark
1961 – Stephen Morris by Nevil Shute or Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (ML100)
1962 – Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (ML100) or A Clockwork Orange by A. Burgess (ML 100)
1963 – The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy or An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym
1964 – A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway or Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
1965 – August is a Wicked Month by Edna O’Brien or Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
1966 – A Generous Man by Reynolds Price or The House on the Cliff by DE Stevenson
1967 – My Friend Says It’s Bullet-Proof by Penelope Mortimer
1968 – Sarah’s Cottage by D.E. Stevenson
1969 – The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble
1970 – Troubles by JG Farrell
1971 – A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis or My Own Cape Cod by Gladys Taber
1972 – Augustus by John Williams
1973 – After Claude by Iris Owens
1974 – The Diviners by Margaret Laurence
1975 – Crucial Conversations by May Sarton
1976 – The Takeover by Muriel Spark
1977 – Golden Child by Penelope Fitzgerald
1978 – The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym
1979 – The Safety Net by Heinrich Boll
1980 – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (ML100)
1981 – July’s People by Nadine Gordimer or Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin
1982 – Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar or A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
1983 – Look at Me by Anita Brookner
1984 – Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
1985 – Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson or Cider House Rules by John Irving
1986 – Anagrams by Lorrie Moore or Marya: A Life by Joyce Carol Oates
1987 – One Way of Love by Gamel Woolsey or Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
1988 – English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee or What Am I Doing Here by Bruce Chatwin
1989 – London Fields by Martin Amis or A Natural Curiosity by Margaret Drabble
1990 – Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman
1991 – The Translator by Ward Just
1992 – The Republic of Love by Carol Shields or Arcadia by Jim Crace
1993 – While England Sleeps by David Leavitt
1994 – The Longings of Women by Marge Piercy
1995 – The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
1996 – Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood or Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
1997 – Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty
1998 – The Book of Lies by Felice Picano
1999 – Timbuktu by Paul Auster or Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson