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Eleanor Farjeon is known today for her children’s books but she did write a few for adults. This one was apparently written in a bomb shelter during the blitz in 1940 and was published the following year. Set before and after the First World War, it’s the first Furrowed Middlebrow book to be published by the happily revived Dean Street Press and will be out on 5th August.
Miss Adeline Granby, Pamela’s great aunt Addie, has written forty-nine slightly shocking and very successful books and dies after starting her fiftieth. But, as Pamela says at the end, ‘what did she know?’ She seems to have been entirely innocent of the facts of life as shown by the title of her first, unpublished book, The Bastard of Pinsk, written when she was sixteen. She thinks a bastard is ‘a very noble Hero of Royal Blood’, which we later learn caused her trouble in real life.
The book starts with Addie’s death. Pamela and her parents are responsible for dealing with this and are amazed by the numbers of cards and floral tributes which flood in, especially an enormous tribute ‘from Stanislaw’, which Pammy’s mother considers quite unsuitable. Pamela is left Addie’s ‘old yellow trunk’, which contains diaries and the manuscript of The Bastard. It’s something of a shock to find the entire, ridiculous book printed here and my heart sank rather but it turns out to have clues to Addie’s life. It’s clear that Addie based what she called ‘my best book’ on events in her own life, which she turned into a kind of fairy tale. Was Stanislaw the love of Addie’s life? It seems so, as neither ever married. By a curious twist at the end, after Addie’s death, Pamela finds out who Stanislaw is. When Pamela (a thoroughly modern girl), had offered to explain the facts of life to Addie, her aunt declined. ‘Oh no, dear. It would inhibit me.’ By the end of the book, Pamela is still wondering just what Aunt Addie knew? A charming and unexpected book from Eleanor Farjeon.
Miss Adeline Granby, Pamela’s great aunt Addie, has written forty-nine slightly shocking and very successful books and dies after starting her fiftieth. But, as Pamela says at the end, ‘what did she know?’ She seems to have been entirely innocent of the facts of life as shown by the title of her first, unpublished book, The Bastard of Pinsk, written when she was sixteen. She thinks a bastard is ‘a very noble Hero of Royal Blood’, which we later learn caused her trouble in real life.
The book starts with Addie’s death. Pamela and her parents are responsible for dealing with this and are amazed by the numbers of cards and floral tributes which flood in, especially an enormous tribute ‘from Stanislaw’, which Pammy’s mother considers quite unsuitable. Pamela is left Addie’s ‘old yellow trunk’, which contains diaries and the manuscript of The Bastard. It’s something of a shock to find the entire, ridiculous book printed here and my heart sank rather but it turns out to have clues to Addie’s life. It’s clear that Addie based what she called ‘my best book’ on events in her own life, which she turned into a kind of fairy tale. Was Stanislaw the love of Addie’s life? It seems so, as neither ever married. By a curious twist at the end, after Addie’s death, Pamela finds out who Stanislaw is. When Pamela (a thoroughly modern girl), had offered to explain the facts of life to Addie, her aunt declined. ‘Oh no, dear. It would inhibit me.’ By the end of the book, Pamela is still wondering just what Aunt Addie knew? A charming and unexpected book from Eleanor Farjeon.
