Tag Archives: The Doll’s House

The Doll’s House by Evelyn Anthony

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The Doll’s House by Evelyn Anthony was first published in 1992. I read a lot of Evelyn Anthony’s books back in the 1970s, those ones seemed to mainly feature Germany and Nazis if I’m recalling correctly, but The Doll’s House begins in 1990s London where Rosa Bennet works for the Foreign Office, she’s quite a high-flyer and is focused on her career, much to the chagrin of her husband who wants to start a family. Inevitably the marriage collapses.

Rosa is expecting to be sent to Brussels by the Foreign Office, it looks like she’ll eventually become a diplomat, but before that she’s sent undercover on a mission to a posh hotel. The running of the hotel has recently been taken over by a man who had been working as a spy for Britain but after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War he had been pensioned off at the age of just 52, with his espionage skills no longer needed. His old bosses had felt it necessary to check out that he was indeed settling down to ordinary life in the hotel industry.

Rosa gets dragged into the violence of Middle Eastern politics, and an unexpected romance.

This is quite a suspenseful thriller, but I preferred the World War 2 related plots of her earlier books.

The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden

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The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden was first published in 1947 and it was the first book that she had written for children, but my copy is from 1963 and it has some lovely illustrations by Tasha Tudor.

The setting is just after the end of World War 2, when there was a chronic shortage of toys, and the dolls which belong to Charlotte and Emily Dane are having to live in draughty shoe boxes. They dream of living in a proper dolls’ house, especially Mr Plantaganet the father of the family of dolls.

They’re quite a mixed bunch of dolls, some broken and drawn on and Mr Plantaganet has had to put up with the most abuse over the years. He had been a Scottish doll originally, but years ago a child had ripped his bagpipes off him, causing damage. Tottie is the cheapest doll, she is a tiny wooden farthing doll (you got four of them for a penny) and she is the oldest of them and can tell them all of the original owners who were great-aunts of their Emily and Charlotte.

When there’s a death within the extended Dane family there’s the inevitable house clear out and Mr Plantaganet’s wishes come true as Emily and Charlotte are given an old dolls’ house which had been languishing unloved for generations in an attic. The girls set to work and make the house fit for the dolls, everything is wonderful until a very conceited doll arrives from a specialist cleaners, her name is Marchpane and she upsets everything and everyone. She thinks she is above everyone else as she’s made of kid leather and china.

This is a lovely tale which was obviously written to teach children what are the important things in life. There are quite a few adults who could learn a thing or two from it!

I love the cover of this book with its beautiful Georgian house, which even has a dog kennel for the toy dog in the story.