An Elizabeth Taylor giveaway

A couple of weeks ago I received a lovely bulky package from Little Brown containing three of the latest Elizabeth Taylor re-issues.

Three novels I have already read twice, absolutely love and can highly recommend. I hadn’t requested or expected to receive these books so it seems only fair to share them with you all.

With introductions by Helen Dumore, Elizabeth Jane Howard and Elizabeth Russell Taylor; these new editions are available from today 1st June – and I am sure there will be people who want to collect the set.

I have pasted in extracts from my reviews, to help you decide which you would like.

So, you have to choose between; Elizabeth Taylor’s darkest novel, the one I consider her best novel, and the one which is undoubtedly her most sensual novel.

A Wreath of Roses (1949)

In a Wreath of Roses close friends Camilla and Liz are spending a glorious month together with the ageing Frances. This is a holiday they have had together for many successive summers, but things are changing. Liz is quite newly married and now has a young son, her husband is a vicar and their home is close enough for him to visit a few times during the the visit. While travelling by train to Abingford a shocking incident throws Camilla into conversation with a man she had noticed on the station. She recognises him as someone she wouldn’t usually associate with – and yet is instantly interested in him. Liz’s old governess Frances with whom they are staying is concerned with her own painting, her rheumatism and the arrival of a friend. The man from the train, Richard Elton, is staying at a nearby hotel and Camilla throws herself in his way much to Liz’s bewilderment. Camilla’s unlikely entanglement with Richard Elton, seems at first merely unwise, yet as the novel progresses – it becomes rather more chilling.

“Afternoons seem unending on branch-line stations in England in summer time. The spiked shelter prints an unmoving shadow on the platform, geraniums blaze, whitewashed stones assault the eye. Such trains as come only add to the air of fantasy, to the idea of the scene being symbolic or encountered at one level while suggesting another even more alienating.”

A Game of Hide and Seek (1951)

My personal favourite of Elizabeth Taylor’s novel – though it is a difficult choice I have loved them all.

In A Game of Hide and Seek Elizabeth Taylor created a delicately poignant love story. I imagine the story was shaped largely by events in Elizabeth Taylor’s own life – and this shows in the writing of domestic disappointment with what feels for the reader, as complete authenticity. Although she remained happily married until she died, and had two children, Elizabeth Taylor did have a relationship with another man during her marriage. It is this relationship which is honestly portrayed in the only biography about Elizabeth Taylor to have been written to date. Nicola Beauman; the author of The Other Elizabeth Taylor considers the character of Harriet – along with that of Julia in At Mrs Lippincote’s to be the characters most like Elizabeth Taylor herself.

At eighteen Harriet and Vesey have already known each other for years, his aunt and her mother were great friends, suffragettes once imprisoned together. They sacrificed their liberty, endured derision and scandal for the sake of Harriet’s generation, there is a sense sometimes, that they don’t fully appreciate it. During the summers, Vesey comes to stay with his aunt, escaping the suffocation of his mother, for a more relaxed atmosphere. The novel opens the summer before Vesey goes to Oxford, he and Harriet spend time with Vesey’s young cousins, giving them ample excuse to be together, both though still unsure exactly how it is they should act toward each other.

“Sometimes in the long summer’s evenings, which are so marked a part of our youth, Harriet and Vesey played hide and seek with the younger children, running across the tufted meadows, their shoes yellow with the pollen of buttercups. They could not run fast across those uneven fields; nor did they wish to, since to find the hiding children was to lose their time together, to run faster was to run away from one another. The jog-trot was a game devised from shyness and uncertainty. Neither dared to assume that the other wished to pause and inexperience barred them both from testing this.”

In a Summer Season (1961)

Is a wonderfully summery novel – it has a fabulous sexy, sixties feel, with a little touch of drama toward the end it is a lovely, compelling read.

Kate is a middle-aged woman with two children Tom, a young man working for his grandfather, and Louisa who is still at school. Widowed from Alan, with whom she shared a love of Henry James, she then married Dermot ten years her junior. Dermot – hard drinking, given to sudden rages is suspected by some of having married Kate for her money – has no job. His mother Edwina – another marvellous character – is interfering in her attempts to find something for him to do. Sharing their home in the country is Aunt Ethel with her cello, and her dog. Ethel writes to her friend Gertrude long letters about the various domestic dramas, and contemplates what they refer to as the “physical side” – of Kate and Dermot’s relationship, which she obviously doesn’t quite approve of or understand. Home from school for the holidays Louisa develops an affection for the local curate, while her older brother plays fast and loose with Ignazia. Alongside the family is Mrs Meacock, who cooks American meals, and in her spare time compiles her anthology ‘Five thousand and one witty and humorous sayings’ I do love how Elizabeth Taylor invests such time and detail in her minor characters. They help to make her worlds complete and real.

I will keep the giveaway open for 1 week, winning names drawn using a random name generator a week today (June 8th). Drop a comment below telling me which book you would like and why. The giveaway is open to anyone – worldwide – however if there is more than one international winner I may need to post surface mail, UK postage is very expensive these days.