old fashioned gentle books

[mumwon]

Talking on another topic 2 of us mentioned "Mrs Harris goes to Paris" a lovely uplifting old fashioned book - ia there any books that other people like - either as a child or as an adult that you can suggest & tell us about them - briefly!
Mrs Harris is about an old fashioned char who saves & goes to Paris to buy Dior dress
& "Family at One end Street" children's story about a family with several dc before the ww2

I love Mrs Harris sooo much, I still have the tattered 1950s paperback version I've had since I was a child in the 1970s!

I can thoroughly recommend two wonderful books called Tales from the End Cottage, and More Tales from the End Cottage, about a lovely older lady called Mrs Apple who lives with her Pekingese dogs, 2 cats and lots of chickens. Gentle country stories full of bees, baking and sitting in the garden. Total old-fashioned escapism. Gentle and charming with lovely simple illustrations. Make me very happy.

OMG I love End Cottage! Tooty the Peke going Tchah! George the lazy cat! Haven't thought about them for years, but thank you for reminding me.

Haha, whenever our little dog sneezes we all say 'Tchah!' because of those books. Glad it's reminded you, they're well worth another visit.

I'm sure my parents still have my copy (of the first book, I never had the second). I must try it on DS (4).

Ah, if only my life was a bit more like Mrs Apple's....

The Warden!

@PinkieTuscadero trying to avoid spoilers but there's one character who relishes making others miserable.

Anyone who likes Lark Rise will enjoy Cranford (Mrs Gaskell) and the Lucia books by E F Benson are a joy. Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons) is very amusing but maybe too dated for under 50s.

Oh, forgot Norah Lofts' House trilogy. Historical fiction. She wrote gazillions of books under different names.

Anything by Elizabeth Bowen, who wrote well of London in WW2, and also romances set in Ireland.

The 'Eustace and Hilda' trilogy (incl The Shrimp and the Anemone - I agree this works perfectly as a stand alone novel) by L.P. Hartley.

I have an anthology of Patrick Campbell articles - very funny, witty, well-written. He was a frequent panelist on 'Call My Bluff', a funny old show, and also wrote for various newspapers.

'The Riddle of the Sands' by Erskine Childers.

'My Antonia' by Willa Cather.

YY to Mrs Pepperpot!
The Moomin books also (Scandinavian theme here)...

More children's books - 'The Grey Goose of Kilnevin' and 'Orla of Burren' by Irish author Patricia Lynch. I read both many times as a child.

'Farmer Boy' by Laura Ingalls Wilder - an account of the childhood of her husband. I like it far more than the Little House series.

All the Winnie the Pooh books.

Agatha Christie mysteries.

Thank you for this great thread!

I haven't read the whole thread sorry, so this may have been mentioned, but hotel du lac by Anita Brookner is a gentle read despite dealing with serious issues

Quintella-I was coming ion to say 'A traveller in tjme' It was my favourite book as a child. I bought it for dd who declared it boring (not her sort of book at all). I read it again and still loved it.

Also anything by Maeve Binchy... I used to read those for comfort when I was a teen.

Lots of great suggestions. I'd also add Barbara Pym (could only see one PP recommending her), particularly Excellent Women. And Judith Kerr's trilogy based on her life, starting with When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

My favourite, which I have read many times, is Foster by Claire Keegan, especially if you are familiar with Ireland.

Cold Comfort Farm, hilarious !
The Hardy Boys series by Fenton W Dixon,(detective stories featuring sons of an FBI man !)
The little White Horse by Elizabeth Goodge, beautiful characters including vain Wiggins the King Charles spaniel and Rolf the dog,who isn't a dog at all and the generations of humans including the pirates in the Black Wood.A determined little heroine firmly set on not repeating the mistakes of her elders, or falling into errors from her own flaws(as vain as Wiggins)
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, made me long to be in England when growing up abroad.
Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel,
The daughter of Time,Josephine Tey. Her temporarily bed bound detective drives away his boredom by researching /investigating Richard the Third and did he really murder the Princes in The Tower?
Characters drawn with gentleness.
Daphne du Maurier, The Scapegoat.Not gentle at all, but fascinating about an English academic on holiday who was plunged into a complex family as a doppelganger for a French Chateau owner .
And real escapism,read under the blankets by torchlight at boarding school as impossible to put down, batteries ran flat and had constantly to come up for air:
The Prisoner of Zenda, a much gentler tale of swopped identities.
The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart and Brat Farrar, both on the same confused identity theme....

Clawdy you beat me to it! I love Elizabeth Goudge's books, not sure which is my favourite.

@Rightsaidmabel I loved the scapegoat as well

What a splendid thread!

Most of my favourites already mentioned but I will just add to the mix John Wyndham. Science fiction but all set in earlyish 20th century and have the 'gentle' feel, despite krakens, triffids and other scary stuff. 'Chocky' is especially gentle-feeling.

The "Wideacre" trilogy by Philippa Gregory. I became quite attached to some of the characters.

ooh, saw this thread and came on to say Georgette Heyer , and Bill bRyson , but also Neville Shute - I love his books , particularly Trustee from the Toolroom - maybe not 'gentle' as such , but such a good read .
Has anyone mentioned Gervase Phinn ?- along the lines of James Heriot , but about a school inspector in Yorkshire
I am a big fan of old fashioned gentle crime too -so enjoy the Daisy Dalrymple books by Carola Dunn

Surprised to see Mary Wesley only mentioned once - really evocative books. And I prefer the Camomile Lawn lot to the Cazalets 😁

Oh, yes, Barbara Pym! My absolute favourite is Crampton Hodnet, set in pre WW2 academic North Oxford, and very funny. Gently-wicked taking the P out of both academe and the clergy.

As I think major fan Jilly Cooper put it, she's like a cross between Jane Austen and Mrs Gaskell.
Also thoroughly recommend Some Tame Gazelle and Excellent Women. All those titles are real period pieces now.

Opening line of Some Tame Gazelle is an absolute classic: 'The new curate was a very nice young man but what a pity it was that his combinations showed when he sat down,'. (Maybe not quite verbatim.)

Fwiw, Amanda Owen's recent two books on being a Yorkshire shepherdess are really "old-fashioned" in the sense that they are well-written with interesting anecdotes about rural life. Humourous at times but authentic too.

A book that was given to me as a prize in top class Juniors - 'Visitors From England' by Elizabeth Kyle. Sadly the dust cover is no more, but I found it recently and reread it, and cried with nostalgia for the time when I was 11 years old.

Also loved Bunter and William and Jennings.

Gerald Durrell's childhood memoirs, My Family and Other Animals and Birds, Beasts and Relatives. A lovely evocation of a Mediterranean now buried under concrete.

I loved the earlier Marcia Willett books. Imo, she’s gone off the boil now. If you love the West Country, her descriptions are very evocative and there are many familiar places. Anything up to the Chadwick Trilogy is worth reading.