E. M. Delafield - Books

Books

• Zella Sees Herself (1915) - her first work, written in Exeter. "curiously savage, self obsessed, alarming" or "quite delightful, full of brilliant touches, serious, sad and funny at the same time". Clearly rather autobiographical.

• A Perfectly True Story - a short story contributed to The Girl Guides' Book. It is an account of Delafield's marriage into the circle of squires & baronets. Kirtington Park was built by Sir James Dashwood, and was the ancestral home of her husband.

• The War Workers (1918) - the travails of working in a Supply Depot under the tyrannical control of Charmain Vivian, who meets her match in a newly-arrived clergyman's daughter Grace Jones.

• The Pelicans (1918) - centres round an agonising account of conversion to the Roman Catholic Church and a death in a convent.

• Consequences (novel) (1919) - Republished in 2000 by Persephone Books.

• Tension (1920)

• The Heel of Achilles (1920) - the story of a lower middle-class girl marrying into the gentry, whose daughter Jane rebels against her.

• Humbug (1921) - a novel attacking 'amateur educationalists' in which Lily Stanhope marries a shouting bore, but eventually achieves a resolution to strive to eliminate the humbug which has dogged her own upbringing from that of her child.

• The Optimist (1922) - largely dominated by Canon Morchard, an 'utterly impossible clergyman' who starts as a horrible man but becomes quite saintly.

• A Reversion to Type (1923) - a bad hat from a country family marries Rose, a girl he meets on a voyage to Ceylon. After he dies of drink, she makes her life in his family house, finally managing to escape her guilt over her degenerate son.

• The Sincerest Form... (1924?) - a series of parodies of leading novelists including HG Wells, Arnold Bennett, Eleanor Smith, GB Stern, Evelyn Waugh & Rosamund Lehmann.

• Messalina of the Suburbs (1924) - dedicated to Delafield's best friend 'Rose', (Dr Margaret Posthuma), it is based on a famous murder case, in which Ethel Thompson was convicted and hanged in 1923 as an accomplice of her lover Bywaters who attacked and killed her husband. Although she was certainly shocked and astonished by the attack, her letters to Bywaters describe her repeated attempts to poison her husband. (Re-published 1970 Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press)

• Mrs Harter (1924) - seen through the eyes of Sir Miles Fowler, a crippled baronet. At one level, the story of 'fast' Mrs Harter's developing romance with Captain Patch, which reaches a crisis with the arrival of her husband. However, it is really a study in how differently the same events are perceived by people who are interested in ideas/things/people.

• The Chip and the Block (1925) - Charles Ellery has an egocentric disregard of the need and sufferings of others, but the development whereby he ceased to plague his family and marries a second wife who can control him is highly enjoyable for the reader.

• Jill (1926) - the story of Major Jack Galbriath who, with his wife Doreen has to live on their wits, which are not particularly brilliant.

• The Entertainment (1927) - a collection of short stories, including The Tortoise, where Charles Ellery re-appears.

• The Way Things Are (1927) - Laura - a character notably similar to Delafield - literary, is stuck in country with her dull husband Alfred (of whom she is "very fond"), has a semi-affair with an admirer, Duke Ayland. Meanwhile Lady Kingsely-Browne's daughter Beebee throws herself at a famous author (DHL?) thus losing "the richest commoner in England" who marries Laura's sister. Laura renounces the Duke (in a way that inspired Still Life and Brief Encounter). Described by Rachel Ferguson as Delafield's most perfect novel. Reprinted by Virago in 1988 with a new introduction by Nicola Beauman.

• The Suburban Young Man (1928) - Peter has fallen in love with the well-born Antoinette, but his Scottish wife Hope remains in admirable control of the situation. Dedicated "To All Those Nice People who have so often asked me to Write a Story about Nice People".

• What is Love? (1928) - Ellie has been abandoned at an early age by her predatory mother, and is courted by Simon but then dumped in favour of Vicky, Eton-cropped and wearer of an eye-glass.

• Women are Like That (1929) - a collection of short stories dedicated to her sister Yoe.

• Turn Back the Leaves (1930) - dedicated to her agent A. D. Peters, it begins with a doomed love affair in 1890 and ends in 1930 with the old Catholic family it has devastated. It was highly praised by all reviewers.

• Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930) - this became a best-seller and has never been out of print. It was chosen as the Book Society Book of the Month for December, 1930.

• Challenge to Clarissa (1931) - Clarissa Fitzmaurice, a rich harridan, bullies the life out of her husband, his daughter Sophie, and her son by her first marriage, Lucien. But eventually Lucien and Sophie defy Clarissa and marry. She also includes a lady novelist Olivia who has shared her home for many years with her friend Elinor, and whose friendship had weathered, "as Miss Fish resentfully observed, the fuss about The Well of Loneliness."

• The Provincial Lady Goes Further (1932) - continuation, beginning with astonishment at receiving a large royalty cheque (from Provincial Lady). Dedicated to Cass Canfield.

• Thank Heaven Fasting (1932) - Monica Ingram sees no future other than marriage, but a foolish romantic encounter has muddied her reputation and wilted her confidence, and she seems condemned to live forever with her domineering mother. "The best of her 'debutante' works, a minor classic that will endure" (Re-published 1969 Howard Baker, also re-published by Virago).

• Gay Life (1933) - set in the Côte d'Azur, Hilary and Angie Moon have to live on their wits and her beauty.

• General Impressions (1933) - a collection of series of humorous articles in Time and Tide.

• The Provincial Lady in America (1934)

• The Bazalgettes (1936) - a spoof anonymous novel of 1870-6. Delafield asked to be allowed to review it for The Listener but was unable to do so.

• Faster! Faster! (1936) - Claudia Winstoe, a dynamo of energy, runs London Universal Services and her home with equal tyranny. Pushing herself too hard, she dies in a collision, and the family and business get on fine without her.

• As Others Hear Us: A Miscellany (1937) - a collection of humorous sketches which appeared in Punch and Time & Tide.

• Nothing is Safe (1937) - a fictional indictment of parents who forget what their whims may do to the happiness and security of their young children.

• Ladies and Gentlemen in Victorian Fiction (1937) - published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf. Delafield was a great fan of Charlotte Yonge.

• Straw Without Bricks: I Visit Soviet Russia - (1937 - published in the U.S. as I visit the Soviets and re-published 1985 by Academy Chicago Publishers). This is her account of six months in Russia, mostly on a collective farm and in Leningrad.

• Three Marriages (1939) - variations on a theme in three short stories.

• The Provincial Lady in Wartime (1940) - resumed at the insistence of Harold Macmillan. The Lady gets a flat in Buckingham Street (above the offices of her agent AD Peters) and works in the Air Raid Precautions HQ under the Adelphi building. Eventually she gets a job & the diary concludes.

• No One Now Will Know (1941) - a decidedly bleak book in which Fred and Lucian (Lucy) both love Rosalie. The title is a quotation from the Irish poem 'The Glens of Antrim' "No one now will know, which of them loved her the most".

• Late and Soon (1943) - dedicated to Kate O'Brien. Valentine Arbell is the widowed chatelaine of a large country house in WW2. Her loose daughter Primrose is having an affair with Valentine's former admirer Rory, but Rory rekindles his passion for Valentine and they marry.

• Love Has No Resurrection (1939)

• The Brontes, their lives recorded by their contemporaries (1935 - Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf. Re-published 1979 Meckler Books)