The Woman’s Novel 1914-1939
Regular readers will probably know that I rarely read nonfiction, and when I do it is still quite narrative driven – memoirs, biographies, or essay collections. Which is why I had let this book languish on my tbr for a year since Liz bought it me for Christmas in 2019. I had known I wanted to read it – but this year I have read even less nonfiction than usual and so there it sat.
The week before Christmas I was casting about for something new to read and pulled a pile from the shelf to look through. I read the first few paragraphs of A Very Great Profession and was surprisingly hooked – I hadn’t known I wanted to read something like this at that moment. It is described as a book of literary criticism, which perhaps makes it sound a little drier than it is. Subtitled ‘The Woman’s novel 1914-1939’ it really is right up my alley. I found it completely absorbing, a real celebration of many of the kinds of books I love – written by the founder of Persephone books and originally published by Virago in 1983.
In this book Nicola Beauman looks at women like Katherine in Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day and Laura in the film Brief Encounter. These were women who borrowed books from the circulating libraries, and whose lives were so often recorded in the very fiction that they read.
“Laura Jesson, goes into the local town every week to do a bit of shopping, have a café lunch, go to the cinema and change her library book. This is the highlight of her week. It was the glimpse of her newly borrowed Kate O’Brien in her shopping basket that made me want to find out about the other novels the doctor’s wife had been reading during her life as ‘a respectable married woman with a husband and a home and three children.’ (This was how she describes herself in Still Lives (1935) the Noel Coward play upon which Brief Encounter (1945) was based.)”
Following her introduction – in which Beauman explains how the book was conceived and written, each of the eight chapters takes a different theme, war, domesticity, sex, psychoanalysis etc. Drawing on numerous novels from this period between the two wars Beauman explores the lives that were being led by the middle class women who would have read them.
In the first chapter Beauman illustrates how war influenced not just the lives of men – but also, and in different ways the lives of women too. These novels often reflected the changing lives of women – and what the middle class concerns of many at this period were – and discusses the propaganda type of novels such as some of those by novelists like May Sinclair. Novels such as Mr Britling Sees it Through and The War Workers, come in for some discussion, and throughout this book I loved reading the extracts from these novels I had previously enjoyed as well as encountering many I had never heard of.
The surplus women that feature so prominently in women’s novels of this period are the subject of another chapter. After the first world war, many women who might have married and might have wished to simply couldn’t because of the loss of so many men of their generation in the war. These women began to turn their energies to other things. Novels discussed here include Woolf’s Night and Day, F M Mayor’s The Rector’s Daughter and Delafield’s Consequences.
Women’s domestic lives, romance and sex take up other chapters, continuing the portrait of middle class female life during this period. She discusses how gradually women’s lives had started to open up a bit, and how some writers had begun to approach the reality of passion and women’s sexuality. These chapters all contain too much fine detail for me to discuss it adequately in a review – but each chapter is just wonderfully immersive for the lover of novels from this period – largely those written by women though one or two by male writers are included.
The final chapter is about love – and it seems a fitting chapter for this wonderful book to end on somehow. It begins with a detailed discussion of a novel from just outside the time period of 1914-1939.
“The Pursuit of Love (1945) by Nancy Mitford is the apotheosis of the woman’s novel about love. In some ways it rounds off everything that was written on this topic during the inter-war period, mingling tenderness and wit into an unsentimental but deeply emotional whole. There are few novels which explore with such insight women’s real natures, and critics who condemn Nancy Mitford as catering entirely for a snob-public are sadly missing the point.”
This book was an easy five star read for me; I knew that when I had only read a third of it – I was so thoroughly absorbed I gulped it down quickly. It is surely a must for any lover of the kinds of novels published by Virago and Persephone. Nicola Beauman is an able literary critic she fully understands these novels and the women who read them and how inextricably linked the readers and the novels were – and I dare say still are.
List writers beware however, there are just so many fascinating novels mentioned in this book that it is tempting to start jotting them down – I didn’t do that, I just didn’t dare! Many of the novels mentioned I have already read or got waiting to read – many others were completely unknown to me. This book is now my favourite book about books I have read for some time.
Tailor made for you, Ali! What a lovely end to your reading year unless you plan to squeeze something else in.
It was made for me yes! I have read two books since this one, just finished the second of them. A Crime classic and another Persephone, they will have to be reviewed in the New Year.
Great review Ali! (and lovely picture!) I read the Virago edition of this, but I think it was back in pre-blog times so I can recall very little… I may have to revisit it via the Persephone edition in case there are any changes!
Thank you. I would definitely recommend re-reading, not sure if it’s been updated, possibly not, but I think it’s one I will want to revisit.
I bought this when it was first published and remember thoroughly enjoying it. Your review has encouraged me to read it again.
It’s certainly a book I can imagine reading again. It’s so full of brilliant ideas and extracts from wonderful books.
Enjoyed the review, as always. I have the Persephone edition of this, which I’ve shamefully neglected (like you, I don’t read very much non-fiction these days). Thanks for the warning to list writers. Since I’m a compulsive lister of books and have a TBR pile at the moment that threatens to bury my house, I think I may have to put this one on the back burner for awhile.
Yes, that is why I didn’t note things down. There’s a good index in any case. I hope you enjoy it when you do read it.
This does sound marvelous, definitely a book I’d think of as your type, with a very enticing write-up.
Thank you, yes it was perfect for me and I had sat on it, so to speak, for a year.
Oh, good lord…this really does sound terrific! I think you’ve done brilliantly by giving an overview of the structure coupled with a flavour of the content. Plus, the link to Brief Encounter is another strong selling point for me. One for the future, I think…
I am sure you would find this fascinating too. I have always had a soft spot for Brief Encounter too.
Such a superb book and, as others have said, one that is perfect for you! I remember writing down SO many titles when I read this, taking up pages of my reading journal noting down more books I wanted to read, which is always the best recommendation for a book about books.
It really is fabulous. I can imagine I will go back to this one again and again.
Excellent review. I have added it to my TBR–I love supporting Persephone!
Thank you, so do I. I love Persephone as you can probably tell.
Great review. I read this about a month ago and thought it was excellent, and I learned alot about women’s reading habits between the wars. I had no idea that Boots and other circulating libraries were so important. Her analysis of the novels is also very interesting and useful. It will be a great reference book, I think.
Caroline
Thank you, so glad you enjoyed this one too, it will remain a brilliant resource.
Nicola gave me this book when I first met her in the early 1980s. It has informed my reading since then. We met over Lady Cynthia Asquith, whose biography she was researching as I was writing my master’s thesis on her as well. I have, therefore, been a subscriber to all her Persephone Books. She has never yet steered me wrong on reading!
That’s a great story, thanks for sharing it. I really love my Persephone books collection.
I believe that we find the books we need when we need them. Thanks for your story of finding this one, which sounds like a great one.
It’s was great, and yes it must have come along for me at just the right moment. Funny how books do that.
Brilliant, I’ve got this waiting for me! I love that Nicola Beauman looked at the book in Laura Jesson’s basket and from that grew Persephone. It’s so inquisitive and intelligent, I must learn not to feel guilty of my nosiness!
Yes, such a premise for a book like this. The thing I love about old editions of books, is thought of who may have had them before me.
I am so glad you loved this book as much as I did. I read it back in 2009, having bought it with you, it seems, but why I was in solitary confinement when I read it is anybody’s guess! (was it when I had suspected swine flu caught at work?) https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/nicola-beauman-a-very-great-profession/
Ah I hadn’t remembered being with you when you bought your copy. Once of our lovely Persephone shopping trips.
This is going to be my next read!
Ooh excellent, really hope you enjoy it.
To a “t” you’ve described my experience with reading this, from the interest but hesitation to the immediate immersion to the endless listmaking. It’s such a gem!
Oh good, so glad you enjoyed this one too. It will always be a great resource.