Miss Read

Miss Read in her beautifully bucolic books continues in the genre started by Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford in the early nineteenth century and continued by Flora Thompson with Lark Rise at the end of the nineteenth and the very beginnings of the twentieth century. The tittle-tattle and petty politics of village life after the second world war are deliciously documented.

The residents of Cranford worried over the new railway altering their way of life, so too, the residents of Fairacre worry that the new housing estate will alter theirs.

Did the Golden Days of Miss Read's books really exist? Probably not but it is perhaps our desire to believe that they did that has driven the immense popularity of the stories as we search for those gentle times.

Miss Read's books fall into four main areas: those based on the villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green, general novels and her children's books.

"Thrush Green was based, outrageously loosely, on Wood Green at the northern end of the Oxford town of Witney (Lulling in the books)" the author's own words from The World of Thrush Green. The author lived in Wood Green from 1940 to 1945. Miss Read said that she enjoyed writing the Thrush Green novels more than Fairacre.

Miss Read was, in real life, Dora Saint. Was it Dora's time as a school teacher that made her choose such a very formal pseudonym. Dora regarded her fictional alter ego as "A far more sterling character than I am". Dora's husband Douglas was also a school teacher and her only daughter Jill also became a teacher as well. Dora did eventually retire her alter ego in Farewell to Fairacre.

The majority of the Miss Read books are beautifully illustrated by J.S. Goodall (1908-1996) who is well known, in his own right, as an author and illustrator of children's books. At the time of writing, we have a collection of these charming books - please click here to view current stock, including many signed copies.

Contributed by Cliff Tomaszewski

(Published 1st Oct 2013)