What to read after Stella Gibbons and Nancy Mitford?

[MsMarple]

I've been immersed in a happy time-warp recently with Cold Comfort Farm and Love in a Cold Climate, and I'm not ready to come back to the real world yet!

I have some Barbara Pym books at the ready, but what else can I try that is early 20thC and funny?

Soup
I think that's just wonderful. What an absolute brilliant way to commemorate your dad.

petrova you are like my twin!!! And petrova was far and away the best of the fossils

Persis - I didn't see your message until after I'd left mine. I loved that book! The sequel was a bit disappointing though.

(Petrova by FAR the best Fossil!)

The national trust diaries I think might be James lees Milne? LOVE. Was Patrick leigh Fermor not a time of gifts? About walking through europe? Loved Deborah's letters in the Mitford sisters collection so must read in tearing haste. Also would recommend for that lost in period detail feeling though obvs different country and era The Best of Everything, 1950s New York, I can never put it down.

You've got a lot of Mitfords still to read. I adore The Blessing. Don't tell Alfred is based in part of Diana Cooper's behaviour when Duff was no longer Our Man in Paris. I also recommend the Mitford sisters letters to each other.

Angela Thirkell too, v snobbish indeed, but screamingly funny, v acute. The social historian, Asa Briggs, once said to me he though she was the best social historian of that period.

Try the British library crime fiction series.

Brideshead Revisited. Decline and Fall.

Ooh, someone else who has read Rumer Godden, ...I feel we are very rare. Have just reread the battle of the villa favourite. Loved her autobiography. Knew people who knew her.

Try black narcissus. And China Court.

De Stevenson, try The Young Clementina

Persis if I'd had daughters, Persis, the beloved Persis, would have been a name I'd have chosen. I liked her character in Anne, , I love the biblical reference. The only woman I think who is referred to like that.

Of course nicebits, you're absolutely right!

I've got 2 daughters. Persis was vetoed for both

Petrova I also agree about the sequel!!

Petrova certainly the most interesting Fossil. I love the way that in a later book she sends a small child a screwdriver as a present.

You are my people!

Angela Thirkhall is a genius. Adore Mitfords; EM Delafield; Mapp & Lucia; Dodie Smith and agree that Persephone books are addictive.

Thank you for other recommendations!!

Is it bad that I have read most of the books listed?
Another vote for Angel Thirkell - she wrote about 20 novels based in the same fictional area and the same characters pop up again at different ages. They cover WW2 as well.
Another author is O'Douglas who wrote novels set on the Scottish boarders. She was the sister of John Buchan. I think most of her books are out of print - but there is a publisher who has redone some. They are not funny, but beautifully detailed and very cosy.

Kindly, I love O'Douglas!

Have you read all the DE stevensons? Some over twee, some vicious about unpleasant self absorbed women, some v funny.

D E Stevenson is a new one for me - I must go back through this thread and write down any that I don't know. It's lovely to find another O'Douglas fan. I like 'Penny Plain' probably the best - it was the first one I had.

Although I have read 'Miss Buncle married ' and just got 'Miss Buncle's book ' today.

Of the de stevensons, the ones about Hester, mrsTim, are v funny. I'm fond of The a Young Clementina which was the first I read and has a depth that she didn't reach elsewhere. .

Yes, I love Penny Plain, Cinderella with niceness. But there are heart rending bits, can't recall if it's that one where a local wife's daughters come home to die, having escaped Peebles and gone to Edinburgh. In the kindle John Buchan collection there's something by her on how she wrote and that most of it was autobiographical. Certainly the bit about sharing a brother in PP and the no decent talk in upper middle class England in the one where she marries a stupid Englishman come across as heartfelt.

Thought you might like to see the 'Souplate's Dad Memorial Bookcase', a thing of beauty if I do say so myself!

Are the Mapp and Lucia books whimsical? I'm not so fond of that style see Barbara Comyns for e.g.

Or do I mean twee?

No, vicious instead. V catty. All about oneupmanship, amusing if you are in the mood.

Evening, ladies.
I've just finished Stella Gibbons' "Here be Dragons" (very lovely) and remembered this thread so came here for inspiration for the next order.. soupplate that's a wonderful bookcase... if you should happen to come back, let me know which ones are particularly taking your fancy. I've just ordered a couple of Dorothy Whipples