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Delafield, E. M.

The Diary of a Provincial Lady, [13] 73, [84] 13; Consequences, [48] 69

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Diary of a Provincial Lady | *New* from the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

We’re in the drawing-room of an under-heated middle-class home, far from any city, on a chilly November day in 1929 and our diarist – the Provincial Lady of the title – is dealing with a bossy acquaintance. Lady Boxe, her neighbour from the local great house, is one of a cast of headache-inducing characters who inhabit this deathless diary, including Ethel the clumsy house-parlourmaid, and Cook, who has just announced that ‘something is wrong with the range’, the PL’s husband, unemotional and uncommunicative Robert, and her children, runny-nosed 6-year-old Vicky and 10-year-old Robin, home briefly from his prep-school and bringing a friend who is eating them out of house and home.
20070301145354 The PL, by Mark Robinson - Liz Robinson on E. M. Delafield, The Diary of Provincial Lady, Slightly Foxed Issue 13

People of Our Sort

Liz Robinson on E. M. Delafield, The Diary of a Provincial Lady

November 7th Plant the indoor bulbs. Just as I am in the middle of them, Lady Boxe calls. I say, untruthfully, how nice to see her, and beg her to sit down while I just finish the bulbs. Lady B. makes determined attempt to sit down in armchair where I have already placed two bulb-bowls and the bag of charcoal, is headed off just in time, and takes the sofa. Do I know, she asks, how very late it is for indoor bulbs?
20151201172738 E. M. Delafield photograph - Louisa Yates on Consequences

Nothing in Moderation

Louisa Yates on E. M. Delafield, Consequences

‘Oh, Alex.’ I suspect many readers of E. M. Delafield’s fourth novel, Consequences (1919), have said this aloud at least once. They may have said it in sorrowful sympathy; they may have chuckled it knowingly; they may have shrieked it in exasperation. They may have varied its emphasis: ‘Oh, Alex.’ But they will have said it – probably – as I have, in a range of tones and volumes. Consequences is one of the most frustrating books I know.

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