The Punch Bowl Farm Series
Between 1947 and 1968 Bill and Monica Edwards gradually built up the near-derelict farm into a thriving dairy concern stocked exclusively with pedigree Jersey cattle. During this time she wrote ten Punchbowl Farm novels with the farm and its surroundings as their setting. Although the real name of the farm was Punch Bowl Farm, the fictional name was contracted to Punchbowl (as was the herd name of the Jersey cattle at the real farm) and Thursley's name was changed to Highnoons for the books. The characters of this series of books were the Thornton family - principally the children Andrea, Dion, Lindsey and Peter. The first book in the series (No Mistaking Corker) was written before the purchase of the farm.
The complete list of Punchbowl Farm novels is:
- No Mistaking Corker (1947)
- Black Hunting Whip (1950)
- Punchbowl Midnight (1951)
- Spirit of Punchbowl Farm (1952)
- The Wanderer (1953)
- Punchbowl Harvest (1954)
- Frenchman's Secret (1956)
- The Cownappers (1958)
- The Outsider (1961)
- Fire in the Punchbowl (1965)
- The Wild One (1967)
The Edwards family's farm life was brought to a close in August 1968 when Bill had a near-fatal tractor accident. The couple eventually sold the farm and built a retirement bungalow for themselves in one of the farm's fields.
Read more about this topic: Monica Edwards
Famous quotes containing the words punch, bowl, farm and/or series:
“Now you’re not gonna have a country that can make these kinds of rules work, if you haven’t got men that have learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“It all ended with the circuslike whump of a monstrous box on the ear with which I knocked down the traitress who rolled up in a ball where she had collapsed, her eyes glistening at me through her spread fingers—all in all quite flattered, I think. Automatically, I searched for something to throw at her, saw the china sugar bowl I had given her for Easter, took the thing under my arm and went out, slamming the door.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“On the farm I had learned how to meet realities without suffering either mentally or physically. My initiative had never been blunted. I had freedom to succeed—freedom to fail. Life on the farm produces a kind of toughness.”
—Bertha Van Hoosen (1863–1952)
“In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)