Th think that Miss Climpson should have been in The Nine Tailors

[Jemima232]

Miss Climpson did not appear in this book.

The purpose of this thread is to examine why this oversight occurred.

The Chalet School books may be mentioned if people wish.

Am otherwise lacking in Josephine Tey expertise

As am I, and likely to remain so until Argyll (and Bute) Libraries allow me to reserve books online again.

I got a sniffy message telling me that my library card was out of date. Since our village library is tiny and only open for three hours, twice a week, it is essential to reserve books.

I asked for nine books to be available for collection from the Island of Tiree library once.

I do not live on the Island of Tiree.

Jenima- are you Katie Morag’s auntie?

Other issue with the haemophilia plot line in Have His Carcase - it is inherited through the female line, but the Imperial Russian throne excluded women from the succession.

Haemophilia arrived only with the last Tsarina, a princess from Germany, so any descent from previous Tsars is irrelevant, and if Paul had e.g. descended from one of the daughters of the last Tsar who miraculously survived the assassination, he could not inherit the throne through her anyway because it could not be passed on through the female line.

Bertrand

Are you Katie Morag's auntie

Yes.

Is your mum Granny Island or Granny Mainland?

Granny Mainland

But she taught me to sing in the Gaelic.

Miss Climpson was a very high church Anglican, so went to a church with a priest who heard confessions - conveniently enabling her to find the list Vera leaves behind. Her landlady Mrs Budge describes her as 'a nice lady and that I must say, even if she is a Roaming Catholic or next door to one.' meaning just that she's high church, I think that's what you're thinking of.

May I thank this thread - rather than wait interminably for DLS to randomly be broadcast and available via radio iPlayer, I’ve used audible credits to get vols 1-3 of dramatised DLS which I love.
Miss climpson here we come !
Also great further suggestions.
Thanks all.

Geek alert - re 'Roaming Catholic', I think DLS is trying to make a complicated pun/theological joke. I have not got the text in front of me but IIRC, after mentioning 'Roaming Catholics' she mentions 'ultramontane' (or perhaps 'transmontane') believers.

'Ultramontane' = 'beyond the mountains' (transmontane = across the mountains), ie the Alps (the northern border of Italy). The word was used to describe people who believed that the Pope in Rome was the supreme Christian spiritual authority, rather than Church leaders in their own home countries.

Miss Climpson ( who, as previous posters have said) belongs to a very High Church - she calls it 'Catholic' - Church of England congregation. I think DLS is trying to say - as a pun - that Miss Climpson's beliefs have roamed away from middle-of-the-road CofE and across the mountains, to be influenced by the Pope in Rome.

It's all terribly laboured, but DLS was the daughter of a clergyman, was High Church herself (as other here have said) and was passionately interested in - and later translated - a great medieval epic poem that is full of theological references and Papal/Church politics.

Has anyone read the DLS Dante translation?

Has anyone read The Man Born to be King?

I studied her Dante translation as part of my degree, though to my shame I can't remember much about it. She translated other medieval texts too - she's part of a generation of women who were sidelined by mainstream academia and who ended up doing a lot of work on non-English vernacular languages (which were then seen as 'lesser').

Not read her Dante translation (although I know it was the work of which she was proudest) nor The Man etc. Florascotia2, I always wondered why the landlady said Roaming as it seemed such an odd error. That’s a fascinating explanation. Thank you.

The Dante translation is on my list.

I am mightily impressed by her thoughts on education in The Lost Tools of Learning, though sadly aware it’s not the way children are taught now.

‘Alexandra Catherine Climpson’ just listening to Unnatural Death and adore the way she signs off her updates to LPW.

@HeronLanyon

Yes. She would never have signed herself "Kitty Climpson" as that would have been very forward towards a member of the British aristocracy.