The Diary of a Provincial Lady
A 1930 diary of unpayable dress bills and a silent husband, and the ancestor of every comic diary since.
Delafield’s 1930 diary of an unnamed gentlewoman in Devon, coping with bulbs that will not flower, a monosyllabic husband, unpayable dress bills and the tyranny of having to Speak to the Cook. The joke is that eighty years on the anxieties are unchanged, and the self-deprecation is so precisely calibrated that it reads as modern. The direct ancestor of every comic diary novel since.
Recommended by 1 Person
Sophie Kinsella
This is chick lit of the 1930s, and the wry, self-deprecating ‘provincial lady’ is one of the funniest characters in literature. It proves that 80 years ago woman had exactly the same concerns as us – from what our husbands are really thinking, to how to conceal that latest dress bill (thankfully we are spared the ordeal of having to Speak to the Cook).
Interview · August 2010
As an Amazon Associate, bookstoread.org earns from qualifying purchases. Links to Amazon on this page may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Spotted an error on this page? Tell us and we will fix it.