The White Cliffs

by Alice Duer Miller

Miller, Alice D.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Classics, Romance, British Literature, World War II, World War I

70 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Alice Duer Miller (July 28, 1874 – August 22, 1942) was an American writer whose poetry actively influenced political opinion. Her feminist verses impacted on the suffrage issue, while her verse-play The White Cliffs encouraged US entry into World War II. She also wrote novels and screenplays.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The review below was from 2016 but I decided to read "The White Cliffs" poem again after listening to Fibber McGee and Molly, February 3, 1942 and the song "The White Cliffs of Dover" was playing. I thought I had this Kindle edition but I could not find it so I read in my Alice Duer Miller Poems edition. I wonder about my Kindle books disappearing, if it is my imagination or what. Nonetheless, I love this poem and its sentiment, I am sure I will read it again at some point. Today is February 3, 2020.



--While I was listening to a radio play, "The White Cliffs of Dover", on OTR which I have seen the movie with Irene Dunne, I googled to see if it was based on a novel & found out it was a poem ("The White Cliff) written in 1940. I was disappointed because I am not really a poem person & I always love to find new books to read. Well it was a happy day anyways for I had found a new author who I was already aware of some of her works from watching older movies. Hollywood made many of Alice Duer Miller's stories into movies & several I have already seen. Roberta (1935- a Fred & Ginger film), Irene (1940) & Wife vs. Secretary (1936) & The White Cliffs of Dover (1944). I found a collection of novels & some written in poetic verse which I was interested in reading. Alice Duer Miller is quite an interesting character being an American writer (1874-1942) whose poetry tried to sway public opinion in entering WW 2. Her poems/works had an impact on the suffrage movement. Her great, great grandfather was William Duer who served in the Continental Congress. So I selected a short story & poem to read & review. I decided on "The Charm School" (1919) because the title looked to be a fun read & it was quite charming! Austen Bevans is an attractive young man but for the life of him, he can't win Suzie's affections or her mother's approval. Funds are lacking and he has competition, so things brighten up when his aunt leaves an all girls school to her only relative & a will can not be found. Austen decides to win his fortune by turning the school into a charm school & being charming is the focus of the institution. That is where the fun begins & mishaps of sorts. Alice Duer Miller wrote several Hollywood screenplays & this has a romantic comedy feel to it. Quite fun & easy to read. One can see the feminist side of Alice views shining through without being too strong but present to prove the point & not forgetting about the romantic side of males & females.

Excerpts-

"Giving the public what it wants."

"Giving the girls what they want?"

"Mercy, no! Who cares about the girls?No, the parents --the parents of our public in education. Now, Mr. Johns, what is it that every parent who sends a girl to a fashionable school really wants?"

"To get rid of her," answered Johns, with utmost conviction. "Very true, but that's not all. It's no good to get rid of them for four or five years and then have them back on their hands forever. Parents want them made into charming women-- marriageable women. Parents don't dare to say this..."

"The White Cliffs". (1940) As I have written before this poem with 52 verses reads like a short story. I like poems but this form of poetry I truly loved! I have more of her works & I will read them at some point but this poem was wonderful. It was quite popular in it day & had an effect on the American public. It was turned into a movie & song. It is about an American girl who has a week vacation in England & her falling in love with an Englishman. Time frame pre WW 1 through WW 2. It is very moving & discusses the difference & similarities between the countries while telling a short of the couple.

Excerpts --

"We went down to Devon,In a warm summer rain,Knowing that our happiness Might never come again;I, not forgetting,"Till death us do part,"Was outrageously happy With death in my heart. Lovers in peacetime With fifty years to live,Have time to tease and quarrel And question what to give;But lovers in wartime Better understand The fullness of living,With death close at hand."

"Bad news is not broken,By kind tactful word. The message is spoken Ere the word can be heard. The eye and the bearing,The breath make it clear,And the heart is despairing Before the ears hear. I do not remember The words that they said:"Killed -- Douai-- November --"I knew John was dead. All done and over--That day long ago--The white cliffs of Dover--Little did I know."

"Oh, sad people, buy not your past too dearly,Live not in dreams of the past, for understand,If you remember too much, too long, too clearly,If you grasp memory with too heavy a hand,You will destroy the memory in all its glory. For the sake of the dreams of your head upon your bed. You will be left with only the worn dead story You told yourself of the dead."

"Never more English than when they dared to be Rebels against her-- that stem intractable sense. Of that which no man can stomach and still be free,Writing: "When in the course of human events...Writing it out so all the world could see Whence come the powers of all just governments. The tree of Liberty grew and changed and spread,But the seed is English. I am American bred,I have seen much to hate here-- much to forgive,But in a world where England is finished and dead. I do not wish to live."

Radio link - September 18, 1946

https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com...

I added both reviews of "Charm School" & "The White Cliffs" together because of information on the author but you can look up my Alice duer Miller shelf to see the book Charm School.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book amid a pile of books left over from my aunt's and mother's estate sales. It was published in the 1940s. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It is written in a poetic style in short bursts of information with each new addition noted by Roman numerals. It's a memoir of sorts, not Ann Miller's, the author, but the memories of her main character "Sue". Sue is from New England and goes to visit England as a young woman. There's no explanation as to why and she doesn't seem to have family in England. She meets and falls in love with a country squire, who because of primogeniture, doesn't have much of a chance of inheriting the family estate. The entries start with Sue's arrival just prior to World War I and continue up to World War II. The book is quaint and different from anything else I've read. I like the fact that Sue is giving her impressions of the time, appreciate her pride in being an American, and especially the history she weaves into her story that . Apparently the book was quite popular at the time in the lead up to and during WWII with over 300,000 copies printed and sold in the United States and another 300,000 sold in England.

[Jessica López-Barkl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a small novella completely in verse that I have had since I was in the a production of EXIT THE BODY. My character in that show mentions that she is reading this, and I bought it to read it, but never got around to it...though I did read the summary somewhere on the internet so I knew what the heck I was "pretending" to read. Anyway, I read it today on Dia de los muertos, and it was a lovely read for this day. This quote in particular rang true as I celebrate my Dad today by eating his favorite foods and taking him down to the community ofrenda here in Albuquerque: "Oh, sad people, buy not your past too dearly,/ Live not in dreams of the past, for understand,/ If you remember too much, too long, too clearly,/ If you grasp memory in all its glory/ For the sake of teh dreams of your head upon your bed./ You will be left with only the worn dead story/ You told yourself of the dead."

I also must say that I reveled in this novella for another reason entirely and that is that I'm a bit obsessed with DOWNTON ABBEY right now, and this sits right in the same time as that show in England, albeit, more of a Devon/London life not Yorkshire, but...good and wonderful, nonetheless.

[Marsha Carol Watson Gandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read "White Cliffs" as a Senior in High School. I Absolutely LOVED it! I stayed after school for several afternoons and typed me a copy of this wonderful story. That was 55 years ago. I Still have my typed copy. I take it out of the yellowed "see-thru" jacket cover and re-read it over and over again.

In later years, I purchased the book. I was so Happy to be able to find a copy in excellent condition with the jacket in very good condition. I felt that this was a "Joy-Bell" from GOD, because I prayed about it before I began my search a number of years ago. It is a TREASURE to me---I still LOVE this story.

This may sound silly.....but I can quote word for word a lot of this beautiful and yet tragic love story.
It touched me at 17 years of age---and it still touches me at 72. NOW THAT'S A GREAT AUTHOR. Abebooks has the signed copy that Alice Duer Miller signed for Eleanor Roosevelt. It is the copy from President Roosevelt's wife's Library. It is currently "for sale" but it is hundreds of dollars, and that is just too expensive for me to purchase......I WISH I COULD---I SURELY WOULD!!!

If you are a Romantic at heart, this book is just for you.

HAPPY READING!
Marsha Carol Watson Gandy

[Christopher Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far the most beautiful collection of words I have had the fortune to come across.

[Susan]

So much was packed into this book.

[Liz Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very readable book of poetry, describing the thoughts and life of a young American woman who arrives in England just before the first world war. Like a lot people who leave home she discovers that she is torn because does not quite fit into either country entirely once she has been away for a while.

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a poetry connoisseur but I thought this flowed very nicely. It's a story of love and loss told in rhyme which was very different to anything I've read before. The only thing I felt let it down was that, for me, it didn't express the feelings of first love too deeply or the loss at all. It just seemed to brush over the latter.

[Jane Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at "The Book Thing" in Baltimore as a teenager, drawn to it by the title and description, for I am most incurably an Anglophile. It languished on my shelf of poetry nearly a decade until today when I ran across it again. What a lovely little book.

"The White Cliffs" is a story told through a collection of poems of Sue, a young Yankee woman who travels to England, the old homeland which holds ever an allure for many Americans. There she falls in love, marries, becomes a mother and then a widow to the Great War. These verses are not only her chronicle of her life, but also her record of experiences as an American amongst the English, a common girl amongst the dwindling upper classes, and a young person facing the tragedies of the World Wars.

It's not all great poetry, I admit, but while some of the verses were borderline cheesy, others were profound and beautiful. This would be a lovely and quick read for an older student studying the World Wars era, for a romantic in the mood for a bittersweet love story, or for an Anglophile ever longing for a journey across the sea.

[Montague · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this by accident and loved it so damn much! I bought the book at a secondhand store, and knew nothing about it. I collect old books, so I bought it. It had been on my shelf for a while, right near my bed.
Feeling under the weather and not wanting to move much, yet wanting to read, I look up and see it. It wasn't what I was currently reading, but it was the closest book to me.
So I grabbed it. And started reading. And kept reading. And it's just so beautiful!! It's so beautiful.... I loved every minute of it. When it was over, I had a hard time coming back to reality.... Wonderful story, thousand out of ten would recommend again and again.

[Zoe Macfarlane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this in 1965 when I was 13. It was so nostalgic. I loved the bit about the ghost and the step on the stair. It was the verse I remembered most. The book was my mother's and I claimed it as my own when she no longer had an interest in reading. But one day, about thirty years ago I couldn't find it. I looked everywhere but gave up and soon forgot about it. Then about eight years ago I found a copy in a rare book shop and bought it. I spent that evening reading it and it took me back. Sometimes books we read in our childhood have that effect.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of poems from my Nana's collection, about an American woman and her connection to and Englishman and his country though the years of the World Wars.

----------
XLI

O, sad people, buy not your past too dearly,
Live not in dreams of the past, for understand,

If you remember too much, too long, too clearly,
If you grasp memory with too heavy a hand,

You will destroy memory in all its glory
For the sake of the dreams of your head upon
your bed.

You will be left with only the worn dead story
You told yourself of the dead.

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful ballad of life...and death...and the dreams of a better world. Well thought out and drawing on depth that can leave the reader emotionally invested.

It would've been neat if Miller had kept the same format throughout the tale.

Well worth the time to read this once or twice a year.

Bottom line: i recommend this book. 9 out of 10 stars.

[Sean Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miller #1
Long poem or short book, take your pick in how you describe it, either way it was an average affair, which is apparently well known and regarded but has escaped my attention until now.
If you enjoy long form poetry of days of yore you may enjoy this one, otherwise, well it may be a chore.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! I couldn't put it down. I read the whole thing through in about an hour. I highly recommend it to anyone, but mostly, to Americans who think they understand the English.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mama’s favorite. 🌺

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written long poem about the English from one who loved an Englishman and her English son. Realistic, sad, wise and honest. A lovely book to read and ponder.

[Cel Jel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story in poem. The choices made when love finds us when we are in a different land and war comes and changes things.
Well worth reading.

[Bill Keefe · Rating 4 out of 5]

What this short book-length poem lacks in technical finesse it more than adequately makes up for in human insight and emotional intensity. A book to keep close and pass on.

[Steve Dewey · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very short and easy-to-read verse novella. Unlike a reviewer below, I didn't think the entire poem was "doggerel" -- there are various forms in the complete poem, some more "simple" than others. But it is in a sense a propaganda piece, so it is sensible, I think, that the beginning of the poem should have the kind of rhymes and rhythms that would draw the average reader in.

The poem has the same feel to it as Powell and Pressburger's "A Matter of Life and Death" - a conversation between Britain and America about why England/Britain/the United Kingdom should be helped by the United States in its fight against Fascism -- the protagonist's father fills much the same role as the adversarial advocate in that film's heavenly court. (In fact, as I write this, I wonder how much of an influence The White Cliffs had on the film).

Like "Mrs Miniver"[1], the novel is set in a certain class -- there are children with nannies, husbands who think that first children should always be named a certain way, people who think that primogeniture is very good thing, people who live in the countryside in big houses. It conveys a stereotypical view of England (we'll call it that) that reflects only the mores of, say, the upper middle-class, and believes those people, those mores, define England. For that reason the poem feels very located in a time, and place, and doesn't speak to a wider audience. But then, it wasn't really written for a wider audience, certainly on this side of the pond. It was written to inspire an American audience to agitate to save a stereotypical Britain.

And, after all, stereotypes can be powerful. This poem was apparently successful in speaking to the American public about the perils Britain faced. The battered old copy I read was a 15th edition, so "doggerel" in part it might have been, but that doggerel struck a chord with readers in a way that more "elevated" or "sophisticated" poetry might not. Anyway, there are some nice structures and lines later in the poem that indicate that simplicity of form might have been an intent. (Caveat: I do not know enough about Alice Duer Miller's other poetry to be sure, however, that this is so.).

So -- a short read, that some might find irritating for a variety of reasons, but that some might find inspiring for a variety of reasons. It has historical interest, certainly, and also has pertinence to cultural studies.


[1] I like "Mrs Miniver"... That bomb shelter scene!

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alice Duer Miller, The White Cliffs (Coward-McCann, 1940)

I finished this a few days ago, and have been trying to come up with something positive to open this review with ever since. I gave up about five minutes ago. Things get worse since I googled Coward-McCann and found out that by 1940, they were an imprint of Putnam. Which means that far from the vanity-published mess I thought this was, it's actually a major-label release. It's absolute doggerel:

“Strange to look back to the days
So long ago
When a friend was almost a foe,
When you hurried to find a phrase
For your easy light dispraise
Of a spirit you did not know...”
(--from “XVII”)

And we wonder why major publishers stopped publishing poetry? Because this came out on Putnam. And people, presumably, bought copies. (Someone must have, or I couldn't have run across one in a used book sale.) And probably had the same reaction I did when I was bogged down in it, which boils down to “why am I still reading this again?”. *

[Caroline]

WRITER'S "SWAN SONG"

The writer of one of the most popular of the songs of this war has not lived to see her prophecy of victory fulfilled. The death in America has recently been announced of Mrs Henry Wise Miller, who wrote "The White Cliffs of Dover," which has proved as great a best-seller in Great Britain and the Dominions as it is in America.
By this composition, Alice Duer Miller gained a more universal fame than she had been able to achieve during twenty years of writing books and plays. Some of her books were adapted to the screen, the best-known being "The Charm School," "Forsaking All Others" and "Gowns by Roberta."
Mrs. Miller was in her late sixies when she wrote her prophecy of an Allied victory, and though she has not lived to see the "bluebirds" over the white cliffs of Dover, her song will be remembered as one of the most popular of the war.

[Nelda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little 1940 book of poetry came to me as a result of volunteering to set up the used book sale at our public library. It was such a tiny little thing among the rest of the books. I liked the look of it and sat down to read it last night. Couldn't put it down until I was through, it was lovely. Just a little story in verse about an American woman in England, her marriage during the first WW and her life afterwards. I found out it was credited as one of the influences that brought the United States into World War II! Wow. Also the movie "The White Cliffs of Dover" was based on this little book.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is one with some family history. It was given to me by a beloved uncle and it was given to him by my aunt, his wife, shortly after they were married, as he was going overseas in WW2,

The White Cliffs, written in verse, is the story of Sue, an American woman, who falls in love with an English soldier. There are family issues, on both sides of the Atlantic, that Sue must deal with, along with the war. The book presents a compelling story.

". . . Until our thirst and longing rise above
The barriers of reason -- and we love." (17)

[Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a long poem!--which was a surprise. A poem about falling in love in England, and with England, around the time of the First World War. Wonderful details about English life and how it is in a stately old manor and how it feels to be saddled with one. Yet all the pretty words are a weapon of sorts, to get the Americans into World War II to kill the enemy. Fascinating.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

✔️Published in 1940.
🖊 My review: I found this to be a bittersweet, touching story that never grows old for me.
🏮 Media form: Kindle Unlimited version.
🔵 Media form: Internet Archive .
🎥 Media form: Movie version – 1944.
✿▬✿●✿▬✿

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A long poem about England. I enjoyed it.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 1/2 stars

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading vlog here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fkur...

[Erin R. Schimmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Nana’s favorite book 🩵