Miss Buncle’s Book – D E Stevenson

I bought this book from Persephone press when they had their free classic give away (I received Someone at a Distance). The image above is from the endpaper. Persephone books have the most beautiful endpapers.

The book was delightful – light, entertaining and very quick to read. The period detail is fantastic – I love to read about middle-class England between the wars! Everyone has help. It would be outrageous to be required to do anything domestic for yourself!

Here’s the blurb …

The storyline of Miss Buncle’s Book(1934) is a simple one: Barbara Buncle, who is unmarried and perhaps in her late 30s, lives in a small village and writes a novel about it in order to try and supplement her meagre income. In this respect she is at one with Miss Pettigrew and Miss Ranskill, two other unmarried women who, not having subsumed their existence into that of a man, have to find a way of looking after themselves. There are some serious moments, for example when the doctor’s children are, very briefly, kidnapped (as a way of trying to force their mother to admit that she wrote the book; which she did not). But the seriousness is minimal – mostly this is an entirely light-hearted, easy read, one of those books like Mariana,Miss Pettigrew, The Making of a Marchioness and Greenery Street which can be recommended unreservedly to anyone looking for something undemanding, fun and absorbing that is also well-written and intelligent.

I can’t recommend this book enough for anyone who enjoys frivolous enjoyable novels.

Here are some other reviews …

http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/2008/11/miss-buncles-book.html

http://eachlittleworld.typepad.com/each_little_world/2009/07/summer-reading-miss-buncles-book.html

http://bookssnob.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/miss-buncles-book-by-d-e-stevenson/