D. E. Stevenson was regarded as old fashioned when I was a youngster way back in the 1970s and I would never have picked up one of her books then, but I’m really glad that I read this one. This is a combination of two books which were published in 1932 and 34 and the first half of it is written as the diary of a young Army wife, mother of a young son and daughter.
I know it sounds deadly dull but it’s not at all. It’s full of humour and the second part of the book which was originally published separately as ‘Golden Days’ is an account of Mrs. Tim’s experiences in Scotland when her husband is sent there by the army. Lots of Scottish words, there’s no glossary but I think they are all easy to get from the context.
The Times Literary Supplement said : ‘The writer’s unflagging humour, her shrewd wordly wisdom, and her extremely realistic pictures of garrison life make it all good reading’.
D.E. Stevenson was a second cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson and her father was the lighthouse engineer David Alan Stevenson.
Some of Stevenson’s books have been reprinted and luckily my local library has quite a few so I’ll definitely be requesting more of them. I read this as part of The C P R Book Group Ceilidh.
It gets a resounding HEE YOOCH!
I loved Diary of a Provincial Lady so I was so happy to get this for Christmas! I look forward to reading it after Persephone weekend. My library has quite a few of Stevenson’s other works so I hope to read those also.
Karen,
I know exactly what you mean about getting mixed up with Stevenson and Delafield. I haven’t read anything by Delafield yet. I decided against buying one at the weekend because it was an old one and £10 so I thought I’d wait until a cheaper one turned up as I’d already spent £30 – so much for not buying any more books!
Oops! D. E. Stevenson wrote Miss Buncle’s Book, not Diary of a Provincial Lady Which was written by E.M. Delafield — I keep mixing them up. It’s the initials. And Persephone publishes books by both of them. Well, I love them both.