It is my pleasure to reminder readers that Virago will be reprinting three new Angela Thirkell titles this November. Time to place your pre-orders or, for those of you with self control, provide your families with a preview Christmas wishlist. They are all wartime novels and, to my way of thinking, they are some of her best. They are:
The Headmistress is probably my very favourite of Thirkell’s books and, having struggled to find a second-hand copy, I am delighted at the prospect of adding it to my library.
That said, I continue to object to Virago’s frankly irritating decision to release additional books in e-editions only, as they are doing with Growing Up and Peace Breaks Out. While I’d agree the three books they are printing this time around are better than the two being released as e-books, I’d still prefer a complete set. And I will never feel resigned to Cheerfulness Breaks In, my sentimental favourite of the series, being released as an e-book only. I’m not sure what, if any, their plans are for future releases – Thirkell’s post-war works are pretty sloppy – so hopefully they might go back and fill in these few gaps with proper reprints one day. We can only hope and encourage them!
The Captive Reader 
Nice! Hopefully the library will have them not long after they’re released!
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!
I love The Headmistress as well, starting with that wonderful first chapter(and all the stories with the Beltons). But Growing Up is very high on my list as well because it’s a Lydia story. So I would definitely want that one in a real book.
It does seem to be the Lydia books that are getting short shrift as e-books, doesn’t it? First Cheerfulness Breaks In and now Growing Up. This does not sit well with me as she is my favourite Thirkell character.
I so agree about the ebooks! I have been lucky enough to get a couple of copies of Peace Breaks Out, but they are expensive… Ebooks are just not the same a real books. Also, a lot of people who love Angela’s books are not so ebook friendly, can I dare to suggest????(I am one…) We need to campaign so Vigaro see the error of their ways…and bring out more paperbacks
I have an old Hamish Hamilton copy but the quality is pretty poor (like all the UK editions from the war and immediate post-war years). It would be so nice to be able to replace it!
I love e-books but, in this case, I think there is real value in printing the paperback as well. But when you are reprinting so many books in a series, people are going to want the complete set for their bookshelves!
I’ve heard the name but never explored her books. And the library had Mrs Tim Carries On. A true DES, filled with funny poignant scenes amid fabulous characterization.
How lucky you were to find a copy of Mrs. Tim Carries On! I love that book, it makes me laugh and cry (I can’t read or even think about the poem about Dunkirk without tearing up a bit.)
As to the Virago reissues of Thirkell, this group may want to throw stones at me, but I like the eBooks. Now don’t get me wrong, I think they should do both eBook and “real book”, but my eyesight is getting worse, and I love to be able to adjust font size with eBooks, or even have an automated computerized voice read the text to me when my eyes aren’t up to it.
I also have written papers and given talks on Thirkell, and it is so much easier to search for specific terms, find a half remembered phrase when I do a search in the eBook app on my PC, and also easier to cut and paste quotes.
So, I urge Virago to release them all in both formats (and professionally read audiobooks also, it seems that November will also see the release of new audiobook versions of The Brandons and August Folly read by Jilly Bond, and a Jilly Bond version of High Rising, which may be new or a digital download repackaging of the Audio CD version of some years ago.
Jerri
I think reading format is a personal choice. I prefer paper, but your points are justified and understandable.
Jerri, I completely agree that the best option is to issue both the e-books and the paperbacks. It allows readers choice, which is surely what we all want.
If you like DES, Thirkell is certainly worth trying!
No Thirkell in the library-will have to ILL🙄
After being a bit underwhelmed by the last two Thirkells I read (The Brandons and Before Lunch), I kind of wish they would all come out in paperback so I could go the library route before shelling out for an ebook sight-unseen. 🙂
Incidentally, does anyone know why The Demon In the House hasn’t been reissued at all? I was under the impression it was the second in the Barsetshire series.
I’m not a huge fan of either The Brandons or Before Lunch(probably my least favourite of Thirkell’s novels) but I think you’ll like these new ones. In my mind, they are Thirkell at her best.
Check out Jerri’s comments below for a very thorough response to your question about The Demon in the House.
Demon in the House is third in the Barsetshire series, the follow up to High Rising, although Wild Strawberries was published in between. However, it is structured sort of like a collection of longish short stories focused primarily on Tony, the son of Laura Morland, and Laura’s worries about Tony. I rather like it, although many don’t. There isn’t much “grown up” plot.
It has been reissued very seldom over the years. Knopf, who published the first editions of most of the Barsetshire novels and did a box set of Wild Strawberries and High Rising didn’t publish Demon at all, none of the small paperback publishers like Perenial or Pyramid or Penguin published it. When Hamish Hamilton, the UK publisher did a “uniform edition” reissue of the earlier novels after WWII they didn’t include Demon. There was a very limited Hamish Hamilton strange size paperback edition published in 1985, and then the Moyer Bell US large paperback in the 1990’s or early 2000’s, and except for the first editions those are your only options that I know of.
I forgot to add that Demon in the House could also be considered the “first” Barsetshire novel, since High Rising and Wild Strawberries don’t mention Barsetshire. But in Demon, the characters visit the Cathedral and “the Dean” is mentioned, etc.
The early “Barsetshire novels” of Thirkell are more or less stand alone novels, that she later “knitted together” into the series by having characters and locations from the early books meet, get mentioned, etc in the later ones. I think that about “Summer Half”, she decided she was writing a series and intentionally worked to make the books connect. Of course, Summer Half is the first “Lydia” book, so special on that account also.
Fingers crossed that this time the e-books are actually the right books as last time those of us who bought Cheerfulness breaks in actually received some dippy thing on mindfulness…and carried on receiving it for months afterwards whenever we rashly decided to try again!
Well that’s a mess. Keeping my fingers crossed for you that everything is fixed for these new issues!
I don’t understand the ins and outs of how this worked, but if you by email or online chat contacted Amazon help folks, they could fix it for any given purchaser, but don’t seem to have fixed it for everyone. I even got a small credit to my account for the trouble. There were links in the reviews of Cheerfulness Breaks In to help one find the Amazon Help people, not the easiest thing to do. But worth it in this case. As you say, hopefully they won’t do that again.
Correction, it is in the comments to the helpful negative reviews that the link to the customer service that will solve your problem is located.
Use this URL to submit your problem: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us/. They fixed mine within hours.
Hope this helps anyone still struggling with the eBook version of Cheerfulness.