My love of all things VMC is probably very well known by now. Old green VMCs with reproductions of beautiful pieces of artwork as their covers are still very collectable, and many of us rue the day that they stopped being produced. I have a bookcase full that I have already read, lots more waiting in the wings. A few months ago, there was a wonderful documentary on TV about the women who started Virago Press – I watched it avidly – it was so inspiring, but I also recorded it, keeping it so that I can watch it again.
Following on from my Persephone top ten, I had originally wanted to do something similar. So many wonderful women writers, voices which would have been silenced had it not been for Virago. Books which surprise, confound and delight, some who have stood the test of time, remaining in print even after the green spines have long disappeared from high street bookshelves. For me, the names that adorn the spines of my green VMCs are like a who’s who of twentieth century women writers. Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Taylor, E H Young, Willa Cather, Elizabeth von Arnim, Rosamond Lehmann, the list is almost endless. I realised there were definite highlights, but I couldn’t pick a top ten, probably not a top twenty.
Some of my highlights from the last few years would include; The Willow Cabin (I have mentioned before how it is one of my favourite VMCs) – Antonia White’s wonderful Frost in May quartet of novels, everything written by Elizabeth Taylor, discovering Sylvia Townsend Warner and of course finding Mary Hocking in the back of another green VMC. There have been wonderful surprises, like A Pin to see the Peepshow, The Squire and Crossriggs – books I hadn’t known I would love as much as I did. Poignant reminders of difficult times with We that Were Young and One of Ours. American classics like The House of Mirth and A Lost Lady. Coming of Age stories such as The Lying Days, My Brilliant Career and Painted Clay. Books of pure joy, humour and charm like The Enchanted April, A Provincial Lady or Some Tame Gazelle and Excellent Women. Really VMC has something for everyone. And behind every single one of them, is a remarkable woman whose voice still deserves to be heard.
So instead of compiling a top ten of VMCs, I decided to share my other VMC collection with you – it’s much smaller – but I am very proud of it. The VMC designer collection – the books are really very delicious, beautiful to hold, gorgeous little hardbacks, clearly printed on quality creamy paper.
I suppose I am a bit of a sucker for beautifully produced books – I love just seeing them on the shelf. Several of these I first read in other editions, and have purchased in these editions since – so I shall have to find time to re-read them in these gorgeous editions. Two are waiting to be read; The Talented Mr Ripley and Frenchman’s Creek. My most recent acquisitions the aforementioned Mr Ripley and replacements for The Magic Toyshop and Excellent Women.
Virago have chosen some outstanding titles, Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Frenchman’s Creek and Jamaica Inn, classic novels from Daphne Du Maurier – and her short stories Don’t Look Now, one of my stand out reads of last year. The Enchanted April is a favourite of many people I know, and one I have meant to re-read for ages. Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour with its brilliantly memorable opening, and Elizabeth Jenkin’s The Tortoise and the Hare with its unlikely other woman. Barbara Pym’s comedy Excellent Women, anthropologists, clergymen and the excellent women who support them. The Magic Toyshop – such a good novel which I only read recently – quirky and brilliantly imagined. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God – an American classic, richly poetic, evocative and vibrant in which the characters speak with such authenticity they are instantly real. I am very much looking forward to The Talented Mr Ripley and I couldn’t help but notice that Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train is also available in this edition. Oh, and yes I do know there are several others I don’t have yet (though I can’t say I have ever wanted to read The Valley of the Dolls – and I don’t buy books I don’t want to read).
So naturally with a slowly growing VMC designer collection, I had to start collecting the mugs too. I just have the four so far – I do use them from time to time, but I take extra care of them naturally.
So, although I couldn’t quite pick a top ten from all the VMCs I have read, I would love to know if you have any favourites – and are you as much as a sucker for pretty books as I am?
heavenali 
At the moment I have a library copy of Elizabeth Jennings’ The Tortoise & The Hare in the VMC designer format (it’s the only EJ book in our library). The cover is bound in an elegant pale green & white ‘Japanese Floral’ design by Florence Broadhurst, which made me look up its’ designer before even starting the book. She apparently had a ‘colourful’ life as an entertainer travelling widely, before creating a successful design business in her 60’s. Sadly she met a gruesome end, which added to the mystery surrounding her life.
Yes that Japanese Floral design is one of my favourites. Thank you for telling me a bit about the designer.
I don’t like the newly published VMCs – such as the new Du Maurier. Like you, I prefer the old green books. And I am glad to have 19th century writers in this binding ( H. Martineau, L.M. Alcott, C.M. Yonge…) as well as 20th century writers. Hard to answer your question: I was very seldom disappointed with the VMC I read.
Oh yes I’m not keen on the newer modern vmc paperbacks.
I’m also a devotee to those iconic green volumes – and the Virago documentary was such a treat wasn’t it? I have to confess to actually drooling over your collection – those designer editions are utterly beautiful and you have an enviable stack there. I only have ‘Excellent Women’ in the designer edition – which I picked up for 50p in a charity shop would you believe – although once my book ban is over I can see myself accumulating a few more! 😉
Buying them is a treat – enjoy!
What a wonderful collection you have Ali. I’m slowly building a set of the green spine versions – now that I have found a second hand shop relatively close by that stocks them, its much easier. I was tempted by the new designer covers but held off because I dont want to end up with duplicates of books I already have in other editions.
Well I have duplicated a couple of novels now – but I couldn’t help myself. 🙄
I’ve been trying to buy copies of the old green Viragos whenever I come across them in the secondhand shops, especially any editions of Elizabeth Taylor’s books. The classic covers are so much nicer than the current versions – I really wish Virago would return to their original style!
Oh yes I agree I would be delighted if Virago returned to that original style.
What a lovely post Ali, and thank you for sharing some of your collection with us! It’s hard to pick favourites, isn’t it? Though I would have to agree with you about A Pin to see the Peepshow, which is one of the best in my view. The thing is, there’s such variety that you can always find something interesting to read. And I also agree with Jacqui – if only they would return to the iconic original design!
It seems so many Virago fans would welcome the green spines coming back.
A gorgeous post which has given me the ‘wants’. Love Elizabeth Taylor, Daphne Du Maurier, Barbara Comyns oh and the Magic Toyshop. But those yummy special editions are a bit of a luxury so I have to drool from afar. Like everyone else I loved the green VMC editions but they seem hard to track down in charity shops these days.
They are a bit of luxury I agree. We all need a bit of luxury in our lives.
I remember when the media were predicting the demise of physical books filing in a survey and being asked how I thought book publishing might change, I suggested that people will always want to “collect” books and that there would likely be a lot more “collectables” printed and I think we actually are seeing that, books are not just to read, but to reread and collect and I for one, love seeing new editions come out with more modern covers, better reading fonts, new introductions and essays! Lovely post Ali.
Well you were right 😊 – certain editions do make lovely collections.
And certain collections can even make a wonderful bookstore!
They can!
Well, a sumptuous collection – both for the authors and their writing, and the books as gorgeous and satisfying objects
I like the word sumptuous – that is how I feel about them.
I love the old dark green VMCs and I still manage to ind them now and again in secondhand bookshops. I recently finished EH Young’s Chatterton Square and loved it, it has taken me years to get around to reading it though.
Chatterton Square is very much on my wishlist- I have loved several of EH Young’s other novels.
I think I have a copy set aside for you ….
Ooh thank you.
I love the old green editions. The paintings on the covers usually enrich my reading experience, and I love how recognizable they are.
I was too young to appreciate them when they first came out, and now they’re mostly too expensive second-hand for me to collect them. I wonder why they phased out that design.
My two favorites so far are One Way of Love by Gamel Woolsey and One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
I think I have One Way or Love among my unread greens and One Fine Day I read last year (a modern vmc). I have been lucky finding not too experience sec have copies in book shops and online.
You have mentioned some great titles. All of them are on my TBR. I have a nice Virago collection that I have on the shelf but not read yet. Hopefully this year I would make a dent in them. I really want to read Excellent women and Enchanted April (Don’t have either in Virago editions though. I think mine is a Vintage).
Well whatever edition you have – they are still great books. Enjoy.
Can there be anyone who doesn’t prefer the green covers……….? Loved the television programme and I, too, saved it for future watching. What inspiring women, I bought a copy of Kate O’Brien’s Land of Spices after hearing Carmen Calill saying as an aside how good she was.
Yes I have Land of Spices tbr too – really looking forward to it.
I have about 20 VMCs on the TBR shelves, I hope to read a good chunk of them this year! Sadly, not all in the beautiful green editions. I don’t have any of the nice new hardbacks yet, but I am a pushover for a pretty cover. (I recently bought another copy of Pride and Prejudice (I think I have six or seven) in German, because it had a really pretty cover.
And I’ve checked and you can watch the VMC documentary on YouTube! I’ll definitely be watching it sometime this weekend. Thanks for letting me know about it.
Oh brilliant glad you will be able to watch the documentary – really hope you enjoy it. Glad it’s not just me who’s a sucker for pretty books.
Love this post! And the documentary was wonderful! I remember when Virago began publishing their green-spined paperbacks and I started collecting from the beginning. Then life intervened – and suddenly – as it seemed to me – there were hundreds of titles and the old covers were no longer being printed. Like many others, I now pick them up when and where I can. As you say, a cornucopia of 20th century women writers, so many of whom had fallen through the gaps.
Virago did such a wonderful job of bringing those women back to us didn’t they? I am just curling up now with yet another green Virago The Fountain Overflows, I think I am going to really like it.
Enjoy!
I am a real sucker partly because they remind me so strongly of my mother. When they first started being published she began buying them in handfuls. She loved the travel writers like Isabella Bird who went trekking in the Rocky Mountains and she also loved Willa Cather and Eudora Welty. She was a socially conservative woman and I remember coming home one time and being amused to find the Diaries of Anne Lister which she was enjoying reading. It was lovely to have a shared enjoyment of these books and after she died I kept all the ones we had in the house. At the moment I’m reading Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather and very much enjoying it. Thanks for triggering happy memories of my mum.
How lovely for you to have that connection to your mum through those books. I read Death Comes for the Archbishop last year and loved it.
Recently, I see VMC being mentioned on loads of blogs, lots of familiar faces, I must investigate, you give me a good idea for a blog post to boot. It’s horrible to be on the outside looking in so it needs to be remedied in this instance…I will look out for the documentary too.
Oh good, really hope you enjoy the documentary.
I just snuck in to see the documentary at the end of the month for which they had it posted to watch online (probably directly after it was aired on TV?) and thought it was wonderful; I would’ve wanted to tape (er, record!) it as well. Even though I think the new versions are beautiful, I’ve got only the older ones, but I think it’s lovely that you have both (of some of them anyway). Some of my favourites amongst the list predated my discovery of the imprint (Atwood, Laurence) but others I think of as proper VMC faves, like Elizabeth von Arnim and Miles Franklin, whose works I probably wouldn’t’ve discovered without the imprint!
Oh I am so glad you saw it. I would never have discovered those writers either without Virago- oh my what a loss.
I pick up green spines where I can, but think I have only one pretty one a Tortoise and Hare, which I suspect you gave me! My favourites are the first I read – the Antonia Whites, the Arnims and the Franklins, I think. Lovely post!
Thank you. I think those ones you mention have remained so loved by many Virago readers.