Search results for ""Author E.M. Delafield""

'January 22nd - Robert startles me at breakfast by asking if my cold - which he has hitherto ignored - is better. I reply that it has gone. Then why, he asks, do I look like that? Feel that life is wholly unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat'It's not easy being a Provincial Lady in Devonshire in the 1920s, juggling a grumpy husband, mischievous children and a host of domestic dilemmas - from rice mould to a petulant cook. But this Provincial Lady will not be defeated; not by wayward flower bulbs, not by unexpected houseguests, not even by the Blitz. She will continue to preside over the W.I., endure rain-drenched family picnics and succeed as a published author, all the while tending to her strawberries. The Diary of a Provincial Lady is a brilliantly observed comic novel, as funny and fresh today as when it was first written.Widely regarded as one of the funniest English authors and an heir to Jane Austen, E.M. Delafield was born in Sussex in 1890. She took the name Delafield to distinguish herself from her mother (De la Pasture), also a novelist, and wrote over 30 books which could be 'as laugh-out-loud funny as PG Wodehouse' before her death in 1943.

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INTRODUCED BY JILLY COOPER AND WITH A COVER DESIGN BY CATH KIDSTON''She converts the small and familiar dullness of life into laughter'' THE TIMES''And so begins one of the funniest, smartest and most lovable books I have ever read'' KATHRYN HUGHES, GUARDIAN''I finished the book in one sitting, leaving the children unbathed, dogs unwalked, a husband unfed'' JILLY COOPER''Glorious, simply glorious'' DAILY TELEGRAPHBehind this rather prim title lies the hilarious fictional diary of a disaster-prone lady of the 1930s and her attempts to keep her somewhat ramshackle household from falling into chaos. There''s her husband Robert, who, when he''s not snoozing behind The Times does everything with grumbling reluctance; her gleefully troublesome children and a succession of tricky servants who invariably seem to gain the upper hand. And if her domestic trials are not enough, she must keep up ap

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