Exciting news for Angela Thirkell fans: it looks like Virago is releasing more Thirkell titles next year! According to the Amazon website, the chosen ones are:
Before Lunch
Cheerfulness Breaks In
Northbridge Rectory
Growing Up
Marling Hall
Admittedly, Before Lunch and Northbridge Rectory are two of my least favourite Thirkells (I abandoned a reread of Northbridge Rectory earlier this summer, fed up by its pedantic preoccupation with slang and poor pronunciation), but the other three are favourites and Thirkell releases are always good news!
These books move us into the war years so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the other wartime books aren’t far behind. A Virago edition of The Headmistress would make me levitate with happiness.
Yay!!
I know!
Yes! I’ve been working my way through the ones already out, trying to space them out so they’ll last longer, and wondering what I’d do once I got past The Brandons. This will be perfect timing!
Wonderful!
I still haven’t tackled Thirkell but I found a bunch of the Moyer Bell editions at the Half-Price bookstore. I couldn’t help but buy them so now I have seven of the Barsetshire books!
An excellent start! Warning though: the Moyer Bell editions are full of very distracting typos.
More Thirkell books available again – that’s wonderful news! There certainly seems to be enough interest in them to justify reprinting the whole series. I’m sure they will get to The Headmistress.
I love Mrs Villars, though Northbridge Rectory isn’t one of my favorites either. I’ve only read Before Lunch once, but I remember thinking it’s one of the silliest.
Even as a Thirkell-admirer, I’m not sure I could justify reprinting the entire series (the final books, especially) so I’ll take whatever I can get!
I think Northbridge Rectory has some of Thirkell’s most wonderful characters and really excellent plot ideas, it just needed more judicious pruning. Some of the jokes drag on and on and on…
I hope they get at least to Jutland Cottage, which is my favorite of the later books. But I agree they could skip the last two.
How strange! Many members of the Angela Thirkell Society in the UK put Northbridge Rectory and Before Lunch among their favourite Thirkell novels. Another case of two nations divided by a common language, I suppose. There’s a lot of underlying humour that you just don’t get unless you are British!
Northbridge Rectory I can completely understand being on any one’s favourite list – just not mine. I think it features some of Thirkell’s finest characters and some of her most comic scenes. I just also think it is the first book where she starts to get lazy with her structure and humour and would have been superb if it had been edited more stringently.
What a pity : I adore the subtlety of Northbridge Rectory which I think would make an admirable radio play.
I completely agree. I enjoy the book, it’s just not one of my favourites.
The Amazon website doesn’t have the complete list of next year’s publications. Before Lunch, Northbridge Rectory, Marling Hall, The Headmistress, and Miss Bunting will all be published as paperback and e-versions, Cheerfulness Breaks In, Growing Up, and Peace Breaks Out as e-versions only.
Thanks for the clarification, Penny.
Really looking forward to these as well. It will make a few I haven’t been able to find before available at an affordable price. Shame that some are e versions only, but great to be able to read her at all.
As an NA person who has performed NR as reader’s theatre/er, the wit and charm are definitely in the language
I have all of Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels … some new Moyer Bell but most used some of which I paid an ‘ouch’ price for … I started buying when I lived in Canada then finished when I moved to England … they are all in an orderly row with the Trollope Barsetshire ones on the next shelf. Take comfort though, I was young when I started buying … Anne
So exciting! I was just wondering about this and how on earth to find out. Their editions are just stunning!
I just found 9 Thirkell books (Moyer Bell) for $1 each in the used section of Barnes & Noble. All but one are in virtually new condition and the 1 that isn’t is quite good. {Also a copy of Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard (I already own first book The Light years)}. Before today I only owned three of Thirkell’s books, although I have read most of them. I had to tell someone. I almost feel nauseous I am so excited. My husband just looked at me funny.
Is The Demon in the House worth tracking down used, since Virago seems to have skipped that one? I’m planning on a Thirkell read this year.