Greenbanks – Dorothy Whipple (1932)

After the disappointment of struggling with a book I didn’t like, I needed to read something that I knew I would love. So I reached for a Persephone book – and Dorothy Whipple has never let me down. This was the last of her books currently re-issued by Persephone books that I had left to read. As expected it was lovely and an enormous joy to read, only now I have no Whipples to look forward to – and that is awful.

“The house was called Greenbanks, but there was no green to be seen today; all the garden was deep in snow”

So starts this charming 1932 novel from Dorothy Whipple which is essentially about a family before and after the Great War. Louisa Ashton is a woman in late middle age married to the philandering Robert, with six grown up children. The novel opens at Christmas; Louisa has her enormous family around her, including her favourite grandchild Rachel who is just four. From the end of 1909 to the mid nineteen twenties ‘Greenbanks’ charts the ups and downs of this family, viewed through the eyes of the child Rachel and her adored grandmother Louisa.
There are familiar Dorothy Whipple themes in this novel, set against the backdrop of domestic middle-class England. Domineering bullying men, and the women, who are partially at least suppressed by them. Ambrose; Rachel’s father and Louisa’s son-in-law is one, inflexible and dictatorial. He and Louisa’s son Jim thwart Louisa continually in both matters of finance and her favourite son, the charming slightly feckless Charles – who they manage to send away – twice. Ambrose also father to three boys older than Rachel – has his own ideas about female education and behaviour. Yet we also have women – who are either supressed by convention and society or who bravely buck it. Laura the youngest of Louisa’s daughters marries a man she doesn’t love, and when later she decides to run off with another man she declares she doesn’t care for what people think of her. Letty married to Ambrose watches her life ebb away, finding herself married to man she once thought solid, and now is constantly irritated by. Letty awaits a legacy from her Aunt Alice, and when years later, it finally comes, she has as surprise for Ambrose, who has already decided that he should take charge of the money.
Kate Barlow who once had a child out of wedlock has had her life blighted by the stain of scandal and shame. She comes to Greenbanks as companion to Louisa – who having known Kate as a child is desperate to help her, but Kate has closed herself off from people – and is a sad pale shadow of her former self.

“Kate continued to be quite unlike her letters. When Lizzy was gone she made herself very busy in the house, going about her work swiftly and quietly, but without heart.
One evening when she was sitting with Louisa in the drawing-room, she let slip that she had never liked being a companion.
“I tried selling cutlery door to door. I went out sewing by the day and took sewing in. I bought a knitting machine. But I couldn’t keep myself,” said Kate, looking at Louisa with dark, discomforting eyes. “This is the only way I can keep myself”
“oh” murmured Louisa, fumbling in embarrassment with her knitting. “I am very sorry dear.”

However after a few years at Greenbanks, Kate develops a great affection for the new Vicar when she is about 40 – seeing in him her chance of happiness at last – but I won’t reveal how that story strand ends.
Rachel’s father prevents her from taking up a scholarship to Oxford, finally relents a year later, but the scholarship is gone and Rachel must be content to being a three times a week scholar at Liverpool, delighted she is allowed to study at last, but it comes a very poor second to Oxford.
The real heroines of this novel are of course Louisa and her granddaughter Rachel; it is through their eyes that we see everyone and everything else. They are real allies particularly against Ambrose and have a wonderful relationship.
Dorothy Whipple’s writing is straightforward and no nonsense, she is less showy and flowery than some of her literary contemporaries– and this says Charles Lock – in his excellent Afterword :

“account for Dorothy Whipple’s years of neglect, for the ill-informed dismissal of her name, on those few occasions on which it might have been raised.”

I love her books and the six novels and one volume of short stories that Persephone publish I know are enormously popular – and justifiably so in my opinion.

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The Closed Door and Other Stories – Dorothy Whipple (1935/1941)

Dorothy Whipple’s key theme – it is one with which most Persephone readers will (we hope) identify profoundly – is ‘Live and Let Live’. And what she describes throughout her short stories are people, and particularly parents, who defy this maxim. For this reason her work is timeless, like all great writing. It is irrelevant that Dorothy Whipple’s novels were set in an era when middle-class women expected to have a maid; when fish knives were used for eating fish; when children did what they were told. The moral universe she creates has not changed: there are bullies in every part of society; people try their best but often fail; they would like to be unselfish but sometimes are greedy.
(Persephone books)

(The lovely reproduction endpaper and matching bookmark)

Short stories are a funny genre – they seem to either loved or loathed – I sort of fall somewhere in between. I generally find modern short stories a disappointment – that is probably a bit of a generalisation I am sure there would be some I enjoy – however I do tend to steer clear of them. So many short stories written today seem to be a bit too clever by half, and suffering a bit of style over substance, the endings so often, leave me at least, with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. I do however find what one might call ‘old fashioned’ short stories a complete delight. Just before Christmas I read a book of short stories by Stella Gibbons, for me the simple well written stories were wonderful.
Having already read five of the six Dorothy Whipple novels re-published by the divine Persephone books – I looked forward eagerly to these stories – wishing before I had even begun reading that is was a fatter book. Like so many women writers of her generation Dorothy Whipple presents the worlds inhabited by her characters in a way that is instantly recognisable and familiar even at a distance of eighty years. Hers is a society in which a wife’s adultery means a ruined life, deemed unfit to have custody of her children she may see them once a month. A daughter is unquestioningly obedient to her parents – even If they are unreasonable or even cruel – she owes them that obedience, to do otherwise is unthinkable.
Many of the themes encountered in her novels are present in these wonderful stories. Marriage, society and family, the so often fragile veneer of middle class respectability. Not all the people in her stories are nice – some are downright horrid – many are sad, allowing life to pass them by. Yet Whipple treats them with affection – their flaws often bringing them to a better understanding.
The title story – The Closed Door – is by far the longest story in this collection – and one I found both sad and compelling. It is the story of an unwanted daughter and the suffocation of her life by her dreadful parents. Dorothy Whipple can also be darkly comic too however, as in the stories ‘Handbag’ and ‘After tea’ I have been trying to decide if I had a favourite in this collection – but I am not sure that I do – I loved each of them for different reasons. Overall it is Dorothy Whipple’s eye for detail and minute observations of life that I enjoy most. Her writing has a wonderful subtlety about it – pared down to the bone – she isn’t a writer to labour a point – it is clear and uncomplicated. It does appear that she has been over looked in the past. But I believe she was a wonderful writer and I thank goodness for Persephone for bringing her work to a wider audience.

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High Wages – Dorothy Whipple (Persephone)

A 1930 novel by Persephone Books’ most popular writer about a girl who sets up a dress shop.

I have become a great fan of Dorothy Whipple – and have loved each of the novels re- published by Persephone that I have read.  Although prehaps not quite as powerful as Someone at a Distance, or They were Sisters, this 1930 novel is still brilliant. Dorothy Whipple’s portrayal of a northern mill- town around the time of the first world war is  wonderful, full of believable  characters and social commentary. The central character is Jane, an ambitious young girl, now alone in the world who arrives in Tidsley in 1912 to begin work as an assistant in a draper’s shop. Jane is quite a feminist in own way, she dreams of independence, and doesn’t baulk at casting an eye at a married man – which is something Dorothy Whipple heroines in later books would not have done.  This is a less moralistic novel than the other Dorothy Whipple novels I have read,  in many ways not a lot happens. Over the course of about 10 years we see Jane develop into a pretty savvy business woman, she makes some good friends, and achieves more than she could possibly have dreamt of when starting out. A really enjoyable read, and I hope there will be more DW novels published by Persephone soon.

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Someone at a Distance – Dorothy Whipple (Persephone)

 

 

 

From the Publisher Someone at a Distance (1953) was the first novel by Dorothy Whipple Persephone Books published, although it was the last she wrote. We chose it because we think it is her best, an outstandingly good novel by any standards. Apparently a ‘fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy marriage,’ Nina Bawden wrote in her Preface, yet ‘it makes compulsive reading’ in its description of an ‘ordinary’ family, husband commuting up to town, wife at home (‘Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife’). Disaster strikes when a young French woman visits (the scenes back in France are most beautifully described, with touches of Balzac or Maupassant) and calculatingly seduces the husband. He abandons everything for her; then there is no going back.

This really is a beautifully written novel.  The sad story of the ruin of a happy family, may seem like something we have read before. However Dorothy Whipple writes so well, and with such feeling, that the reader watches the slow crumble of this likeable family with real regret. Things build slowly, culminating in the destruction of a once happy family. By the time the novel reaches this point, the reader feels they know this family intimately – people who are never happier than when they with one another.  Warm and fuzzy scenes of family life are so idealised that they contrast sharply with what follows.  The scenes in France are a beautifully observed depiction of small town French life,  with all its petty snobberies.  This was an absolute pleasure to read, as with all previous Dorothy Whipple novels I have read.

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They Knew Mr Knight – Dorothy Whipple – (Persephone)

Synopsis:

The Blakes are an ordinary family: Celia looks after the house and Thomas works at the family engineering business in Leicester. The book begins when he meets Mr Knight, a financier as crooked as any on the front pages of our newspapers nowadays; and tracks his and his family’s swift climb and fall.

Persephone publish 5 Dorothy Whipple books, four novels and one book of short stories, and it is easy to see why, her writing of families and their ups and downs their triumphs and disasters is brilliant. This is the third of the four novels re-published by Persephone that I have read. My favourite was They were Sisters, but this one is almost as good. I found it quite unputdownable really, it is nearly 500 pages long but I read it so quickly it din’t feel as long as that.

Celia is an innocent, a housewife and mother who knows nothing of finance, and understands even less. She is however a steadfast and true woman who supports her husband, and her children in everything, and she knows enough to dislike Mr Knight. Freda – the eldest daughter is rather selfish, although she longs for great things to happen to her, the reader can’t help but shake their head over what must surely come to pass, and pity her in her silliness. This is a very moral tale, in which those who aim too high have everything come crashing down, and who have to live with the results.

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They were sisters – Dorothy Whipple (Persephone)

Christmas pressie from Liz : )

Wow this is a hugely readable almost unputdownable novel. First published in 1943 – it is only slightly dated – the siter’s of the title employ maids,make trunk calls, send telegrams travel first class etc. Apart from those small details this novel remains as topical today as it ever was. It concerns the slow destruction of a once happy woman; Charlotte married to a man who turned out to be a vile bully. The effect this has on their three children is terrible, as over the course of their childhoods they become more and more cowed by their father. Charlotte’s sisters, Lucy, dependable, supportive and nurturing is happily, but quietly and childlessly married to William. While Vera, beautiful and shallow, married to Brian who bores her takes little notice of her two young daughters.

This excellent Dorothy Whipple novel re published by Persephone takes a poignant look at what today might be called disfunctional families – the unhappiness of children caught up in the destruction brought about by adults is keenly felt.

This is the second Dorothy Whipple novel I have read, and I will be adding the other two that Persephone publish to my growing Persephone collection in due course.

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The Priory – Dorothy Whipple – Perspehone book 40

 

 

 

 

 

This is a quite a nice big thick Persephone book, and I loved it. It is set just before the outbreak of the second world war. The priory of the title is the house and esate – Saunby – built on the site of an ancient priory – it belongs to Major Marwood. His two daughters although about twenty still live in their rooms in the old nursery – where they can pretty much please themselves – and that is how they like it. But change beckons – the Major decides to re marry – Anthea is almost forty, and he assumes will just run his house rather better than it has been run under the eye of his spinster sister. However Anthea becomes pregnant – not something the Major had bargined for as all he is interested in is the cricket fortnight he hosts each year. The lives of all at Saunby change – and both daughters are forced to look at their lives and act accordingly.

Over all another great read from Persephone.

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