I was able to indulge in a mini buying spree recently after my ex-colleagues kindly gave me a Waterstone’s gift card as a leaving present. I dashed home and had spent it within about five minutes of getting through the door. Anyway, I plumped for The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory, Judith Butler’s Bodies that Matter and Mary Cholmondeley’s Diana Tempest. The first two are improving books for my PhD, and I need to make myself read theoretical work for at least an hour a day, rather than just sticking my beak in Victorian potboilers; the latter title is a lovely-looking edition from Valancourt Books. I suspect this novel is one of those castigated by Marie Corelli in The Sorrows of Satan as symbolising all that was wrong with the world. How exciting.
I have also decided that I’m allowed to buy Florence Marryat novels if they are cheaper than two trips to the British Library (which is how long it would take to read one). On that premise, I have managed to bag a early edition of her 1892 novel How Like a Woman. With rather less justification, I have also bought George Gissing’s The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, which is supposed to be largely autobiographical. Still, it was only a fiver in the Oxfam bookshop, and I shall be on very intimate terms with Mr Gissing over the next few years.
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I notice that Carolyn Oulton edited Diana Tempest. She is apparently writing a biography of Mary Cholmondeley at the moment (I can’t remember who for). She also set up a website about her, which is well worth a look.
Ah, that’s very interesting, thank you Kirsty. It’s a nice-looking website.