Charlotte Sometimes

7 replies

turquoise · 01/09/2007 23:01

Does anybody have an old copy (pre 1985 I believe) of this, that includes the ending where Charlotte gets the letter from Emily? I've lost my old copy, and the new one I've got for dd doesn't have it.

If anyone has it and would be willing to photocopy, I'd pay obviously? thanks.

OP posts:

gess · 01/09/2007 23:04

I've just bought a pre 1985 copy It was cheap- a couple of quid. I'll be happy to photocopy the relevant bit (although can you let me know the pages, I'm not sure where the difference starts). I can't do it until Wednesday though.....

RustyBear · 01/09/2007 23:07

Where does the new one stop? I have a 1972 Puffin copy & would be happy to photocopy, or I could type it out & email if you like, as I am trying to practise my typing.

Original poster

turquoise · 01/09/2007 23:08

Yay! thanks, will CAT.

OP posts:

NotanOtter · 02/12/2008 00:10

absolutley GUTTED just bought my copy and although dated 1969 ...it is revised in 1985...grrrr

janeite · 02/12/2008 19:40

Oh I love "Charlotte Sometimes". And of course, it inspired an excellent song by The Cure too.

madmadmadwoman · 18/12/2008 16:52

what is different in the older version? does it have a different ending?

MoominMymbleandMy · 18/12/2008 23:13

I posted about this on another thread. Does anyone know why they've changed it?

My guess was that publishers wanted Charlotte to seem contemporary, and she couldn't be if she was at school with a girl whose mother was a schoolgirl in the First World War.

Lovely, haunting book. I've still got my 1970's copy luckily, and my daughter has just read it and loved it.

madmadmadwoman I don't know how the new version differs but in the old one the now grown-up Emily sends Charlotte a letter together with the marbles and toy soldiers that Agnes Chisel-Brown gave them back in 1918 when Charlotte was stuck in Clare and Emily's time.

In the letter she explains she didn't know exactly when Charlotte would be arriving at the school so she asked her daughters to watch out for a Charlotte Makepeace and to be kind to her. And the youngest daughter Sarah duly reported in her last term that Charlotte had turned up.

She tells her about Clare's death in the flu epidemic and how tempted she had been to come and see Clare on the days she knew she had swapped with Charlotte but couldn't face it.

It rounds the story off. If it just ends with Charlotte returning to her own time it must seem a bit truncated. Does Charlotte even find out what happened to Clare and Emily in the new version?

Flip