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The Woman Novelist and Other Stories
There are 15 stories in this collection, all extremely varied but all sharing a sharp, sardonic quality characteristic of Diana Gardner’s work. Several of the stories in 'The Woman Novelist' are about women behaving badly, and many of them are uncomfortable reading.
148 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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173 people want to read
About the author
Diana Gardner
1 bookDiana Gardner (1913–1997) was a writer, wood engraver and book illustrator who studied at the Westminster School of Art.
Diana Gardner, born in 1913, went to Bedford High School and Westminster School of Art and afterwards worked as a wood engraver and book illustrator. During the Second World War she lived with her father in a cottage in Rodmell in Sussex, where she knew the Woolfs and often visited Leonard after Virginia's death. She had begun writing when very young, her first short story being published in Horizon in 1940. Her collection Halfway Down the Cliff (from which all but one of the stories in The Woman Novelist and Other Stories are selected) was published in 1946. After the war Diana Gardner returned to London and worked in publishing as a reader and editor. Her novel The Indian Woman appeared in 1954. From the 1960s onwards she was a full-time painter working mostly in pen-and-ink and watercolour: her work was frequently exhibited until the time of her death in 1997.
Diana Gardner, born in 1913, went to Bedford High School and Westminster School of Art and afterwards worked as a wood engraver and book illustrator. During the Second World War she lived with her father in a cottage in Rodmell in Sussex, where she knew the Woolfs and often visited Leonard after Virginia's death. She had begun writing when very young, her first short story being published in Horizon in 1940. Her collection Halfway Down the Cliff (from which all but one of the stories in The Woman Novelist and Other Stories are selected) was published in 1946. After the war Diana Gardner returned to London and worked in publishing as a reader and editor. Her novel The Indian Woman appeared in 1954. From the 1960s onwards she was a full-time painter working mostly in pen-and-ink and watercolour: her work was frequently exhibited until the time of her death in 1997.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 17, 2020
I really loved this – great compelling stories, full of fascinating characters and interesting insight. I can't wait to read more by this author!
February 14, 2018
Some wonderful, poignant stories in this collection by Diana Gardner. Some are happy, some are emotional, some test human emotions to the extreme, but all are captivating. I really enjoyed them.
February 14, 2016
Diana Gardner was a writer and artist who knew Virginia and Leonard Woolf; they were neighbours during the war. Whether Virginia Woolf ever actually read Diana’s work seems to be unknown – though she is reported to have scribbled a congratulatory note on the side of the Horizon pre-publication leaflet, which announced Diana Gardner’s story ‘The Land Girl’ would be included in the Christmas 1940 edition. The Land Girl is for me one of the best stories in this really quite superb collection. Gardner’s depiction of jealous selfishness and its destructive nature is breath-taking. The narrator Una, is a cool, heartless creature, who comes we find out early on from a fairly well-to-do family – she is initially enraged by the lack of sugar for her porridge. From then on the girl wages her own little war on the woman whose home she is staying in.
“It was then that something took possession of me. The sight of the old, chipped thermos on the orange tray and his spent, thin shoulders bent over it caused my dislike of Mrs Farrant to well up into a sudden storm of hatred.”
(From The Land Girl)
With the exception of ‘The Woman Novelist’, these stories we were written during the Second World War; and although some of the stories taking place in the Germany of this period, there aren’t that many references to the war itself. In The Splash a young Nazi stormtrooper seeks to prove himself to be a specimen of Nazi perfection, while at the pool with a couple of English girls. While in A Summer Holiday Gardner explores how people can – despite all the evidence available – be completely blind to what is going on around them.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
“It was then that something took possession of me. The sight of the old, chipped thermos on the orange tray and his spent, thin shoulders bent over it caused my dislike of Mrs Farrant to well up into a sudden storm of hatred.”
(From The Land Girl)
With the exception of ‘The Woman Novelist’, these stories we were written during the Second World War; and although some of the stories taking place in the Germany of this period, there aren’t that many references to the war itself. In The Splash a young Nazi stormtrooper seeks to prove himself to be a specimen of Nazi perfection, while at the pool with a couple of English girls. While in A Summer Holiday Gardner explores how people can – despite all the evidence available – be completely blind to what is going on around them.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
March 19, 2016
As with most Persephone Books these are bitter sweet tales of women making the best of their lot. I truly love the publications that Persephone Books choose to print and this one was a gentle introduction to an author that I hadn't read before.
March 31, 2021
I’ve come to appreciate the skill and beauty of a short story over the last few years. There is something special about being able to create a full and complete story in a few words, one which leaves the reader fulfilled and wanting only to read more because the characters were so compelling, and not because the story feels incomplete.
These stories are snapshots into the lives of various women. Some of those are fleeting, only a few pages. Others feel like the reader has been immersed in the character. The Land Girl, the short story that started Gardner on her path, is a brilliant insight into a complex character, one that is anything but the ordinary woman of the 1940s, usually portrayed on paper.
Each story is an observant look at the role women played in society, their expectations and the requirements they were assumed to want and need obviously not always coinciding. In The Woman Novelist, the central character has taken on the role of breadwinner, as her husband trains for a new career. With children and mothers to look after she casts aside worries about her husband to focus on the one thing that saves her, writing.
Stories cover a gamut of emotions and ideas, from childhood memories carried and mutated in adulthood, to forbidden love in a time of heightened danger to first love. There are hints of malice, of contentment, hints of secrets about to be exposed or kept for a lifetime. These stories are character studies, showing that women were not just home makers. That they can do untold damage, hold untold secrets and be made and shaped by the past or their future. Diana Gardner herself was a mould-breaker, writing characters that readers did not expect to see in the 1940s.
A fascinating, enjoyable set of stories that I will no doubt dip into again in the future.
These stories are snapshots into the lives of various women. Some of those are fleeting, only a few pages. Others feel like the reader has been immersed in the character. The Land Girl, the short story that started Gardner on her path, is a brilliant insight into a complex character, one that is anything but the ordinary woman of the 1940s, usually portrayed on paper.
Each story is an observant look at the role women played in society, their expectations and the requirements they were assumed to want and need obviously not always coinciding. In The Woman Novelist, the central character has taken on the role of breadwinner, as her husband trains for a new career. With children and mothers to look after she casts aside worries about her husband to focus on the one thing that saves her, writing.
Stories cover a gamut of emotions and ideas, from childhood memories carried and mutated in adulthood, to forbidden love in a time of heightened danger to first love. There are hints of malice, of contentment, hints of secrets about to be exposed or kept for a lifetime. These stories are character studies, showing that women were not just home makers. That they can do untold damage, hold untold secrets and be made and shaped by the past or their future. Diana Gardner herself was a mould-breaker, writing characters that readers did not expect to see in the 1940s.
A fascinating, enjoyable set of stories that I will no doubt dip into again in the future.
January 23, 2019
Very interesting collection of stories, published in literary magazines before their appearance together in a book in 1946--many concern the war and several are set in Germany. This current publication comes from Persephone Books, in a really nifty design--here's a blurb from their website: "Persephone Books reprints neglected fiction and non-fiction by mid-twentieth century (mostly) women writers. All of our 130 books are intelligent, thought-provoking and beautifully written and are chosen to appeal to busy people wanting titles that are neither too literary nor too commercial. We publish novels, short stories, diaries, memoirs and cookery books; each has an elegant grey jacket, a ‘fabric’ endpaper with matching bookmark."
July 31, 2024
I was aware these were short stories and the writing was good but so often I was left disappointed by an anti climatic ending. It was as if the story needed to be longer in order for the interest to build and a satisfying ending to be achieved.
October 2, 2016
One of my goals for my visit to the UK last month was to visit Persephone Books while I was in London. I loved their tiny shop and I struggled to pick out only 3 books to purchase. (In the future I'll leave more room in my suitcase!)
One of the books I selected was this collection of short stories, and it made an excellent traveling companion.
Gardner has a gift for making even a relatively-plotless short vignette feel like a page turner. It took me a few stories to understand her sense of humor - "No Change" confused me the first time I read it, but by the time I got to "Halfway Down the Cliff" I was in on the joke. Her stories read like windows into fully-fleshed out worlds and people that continue living after the story is done. The lighter, satirical stories I tended to find enjoyable but forgettable, but others like "In the Boathouse" stuck with me. My favorites were the "Land Girl" and "Summer with the Baron."
One of the books I selected was this collection of short stories, and it made an excellent traveling companion.
Gardner has a gift for making even a relatively-plotless short vignette feel like a page turner. It took me a few stories to understand her sense of humor - "No Change" confused me the first time I read it, but by the time I got to "Halfway Down the Cliff" I was in on the joke. Her stories read like windows into fully-fleshed out worlds and people that continue living after the story is done. The lighter, satirical stories I tended to find enjoyable but forgettable, but others like "In the Boathouse" stuck with me. My favorites were the "Land Girl" and "Summer with the Baron."
January 20, 2013
A delightful collection of superb short stories. I enjoyed each story, though a few stood out as quietly remarkable, eg: 'The Woman Novelist' and 'Land Girl'. For me a short story must be concise, like a shining, sea-smoothed shell - timeless, patterned with beautiful observation, delicate, direct and memorable. Short stories really are so much about the craft of writing as something quite magical and to write a few good stories in a lifetime is something to be admired.
I'll certainly look out for other books by this author, but right now I am as budget permits, reading the Persephone short story books.
I'll certainly look out for other books by this author, but right now I am as budget permits, reading the Persephone short story books.
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November 22, 2021Enjoyed this collection. I’m a fan of this writing style. Definitely reminiscent of Bloomsbury group writers. Poetic and pleasing. The stories are more like fleeting snap shots into people’s lives rather than fully rounded stories. There isn’t so much conflict and resolution. Some of the stories end abruptly (and perhaps to some, unsatisfactorily). Mrs. Carimichael’s bed had the most potential of the collection I think (or certainly it’s the one that has stayed with me the most).
July 13, 2014
What a brilliant collection of short stories. I had heard that DG gives Chekhov a run for his money in the short story department but boy she is good! Not quite the master but I bet she had him worried.
A superb grouping of bitter-sweet gems, funny characters and period detail, all in a few pages -Genius!
Toast
A superb grouping of bitter-sweet gems, funny characters and period detail, all in a few pages -Genius!
Toast
December 10, 2016
So glad I found persephone books! This little collection is a perfect timecapsule but fresh and exciting at the same time. sometimes subversive, sometimes funny and beautifully written peaks into the lives of many different women. These are the sort of stories I would love to write myself and I'll be looking up more of this author's work!
May 11, 2015
The short stories that make up this collection are individual gems. Each one kept me interested in the characters/situation till the end and to be honest, some of them have stuck around even after that.
June 9, 2011
A lovely Persephone book with some perfect gold nuggets of stories from 1930s and 1940s England, very descriptive with a strong sense of place and character. Often, not much happens. If you like that kind of story, you will love these.
January 27, 2020
I bought this book at Persephone Books in London when I was there a few years ago. It's a great set of short stories that I'm still thinking about after finishing the book. Having mostly been written in the 40s, they read surprisingly modern and have aged well.
September 18, 2016
*3.5 stars*
This quiet, clever collection shows all types of women of all ages, situations and personalities during the Second World War and I really enjoyed it.
This quiet, clever collection shows all types of women of all ages, situations and personalities during the Second World War and I really enjoyed it.
February 26, 2017
short stories with a strange edge ( a bit nasty, not warm and cozy). A very fast read, just nothing special imho.
January 16, 2019
These suspenseful, surprising, short stories "about women behaving badly" (as the blurb so nicely puts it) were a delight to read.
August 23, 2020
Diana Gardner made a Nazi do a belly flop, and we love to see it.
March 24, 2022
4.5 -- not quite over the 5 star line.
Fantastic stories, none the less.
Fantastic stories, none the less.
October 3, 2023
I was looking forward to reading this collection of stories because I had read one of them already in another collection and it was one of the best short stories I have ever read (The Land Girl). This collection did not disappoint. Highly recommended. She said she has a writing style for her short stories where she likes to keep people in suspense. Let her tell her style of writing rather than me:
• “In a notebook of Diana’s called ‘My method of writing short stories and novels’, written in 1956 and which she thought could be used as notes for a BBC talk (a project which she did not pursue), she emphasizes the need for tautness and tension in stories: A tension of suspense — of the story unfolding — “... the reader never sits down and is utterly context with what is happening at the moment. He is always aware of the impending development which is going to upset — or resolve — that very part which he is at the moment reading about.”
And for many of the stories that’s the way it was for me. She would have been pleased. All of the stories but one in this Persephone Books re-issue was from her earlier collection, Halfway Down the Cliff (1946). And all of those stories had previously been published in periodicals. But there were five in that collection, ‘Halfway Down the Cliff’, not in the Persephone Book so I will have to get access to that book. She doesn’t have a very large oeuvre. Just one novel, which I also have to get, The Indian Woman (1954). And that’s it. Rats! She spent most of her pursuits in being a painter , “working mostly in pen-and-ink and watercolour” (from the inner back sleeve of the dustjacket of the Persephone re-issue). Here are the stories and my ratings:
• The House at Hove — 4 stars
• No Change — 4 stars
• Miss Carmichael’s Bed — 4.5 stars
• The Land Girl — 5 stars
• The Summer Holiday — 4.5 stars
• The Woman Novelist — 3.5 stars
• Crossing the Atlantic — 3 stars
• The Couple from London— 4 stars
• Mrs. Lumley — 5 stars
• In the Boathouse — 4.5 stars
• Halfway Down the Cliff — 5 stars
• The Splash — 3 stars
• The Pirate — 3 stars
• Summer with the Baron — 2.5 stars
• The Visitation — 2.5 stars
Reviews:
• https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordp...
• https://www.josieholford.com/the-land...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
• “In a notebook of Diana’s called ‘My method of writing short stories and novels’, written in 1956 and which she thought could be used as notes for a BBC talk (a project which she did not pursue), she emphasizes the need for tautness and tension in stories: A tension of suspense — of the story unfolding — “... the reader never sits down and is utterly context with what is happening at the moment. He is always aware of the impending development which is going to upset — or resolve — that very part which he is at the moment reading about.”
And for many of the stories that’s the way it was for me. She would have been pleased. All of the stories but one in this Persephone Books re-issue was from her earlier collection, Halfway Down the Cliff (1946). And all of those stories had previously been published in periodicals. But there were five in that collection, ‘Halfway Down the Cliff’, not in the Persephone Book so I will have to get access to that book. She doesn’t have a very large oeuvre. Just one novel, which I also have to get, The Indian Woman (1954). And that’s it. Rats! She spent most of her pursuits in being a painter , “working mostly in pen-and-ink and watercolour” (from the inner back sleeve of the dustjacket of the Persephone re-issue). Here are the stories and my ratings:
• The House at Hove — 4 stars
• No Change — 4 stars
• Miss Carmichael’s Bed — 4.5 stars
• The Land Girl — 5 stars
• The Summer Holiday — 4.5 stars
• The Woman Novelist — 3.5 stars
• Crossing the Atlantic — 3 stars
• The Couple from London— 4 stars
• Mrs. Lumley — 5 stars
• In the Boathouse — 4.5 stars
• Halfway Down the Cliff — 5 stars
• The Splash — 3 stars
• The Pirate — 3 stars
• Summer with the Baron — 2.5 stars
• The Visitation — 2.5 stars
Reviews:
• https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordp...
• https://www.josieholford.com/the-land...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
December 10, 2024
3.5 rounded up. On the whole, the were poignant short stories that often showed a woman making the best of her lot, and I am a bug fan of little vignettes that provide snapshots of simple, everyday life. My only issue was that some of these were so short that the simplicity felt just anticlimactic. There wasn't enough time to build tension, or get invested in the characters, and when nothing much happens in the story, the whole thing feels like a pretty weak use of 5 pages. I would recommend this collection, and there were no stories that I absolutely didn't like, so maybe my review is harsh, which is why I've decided to round up my rating.
March 2, 2016
I really do love Persphone Press. They are doing such a good thing. This book though, is probably not one of their best, at least for me. It's an anthology of short stories by Diana Gardner and most of them are quite sad or bitter. A few are kinda amusing and left me smirking to myself, which probably looked strange. But for the most part, I think it's safe to call this book melancholic. Which even though I love that kind of thing normally, this was like melancholy but with the taste of bitterness. I dunno, melancholy is usually not THAT bitter, but this was. WELP.
https://hercommonplaceblog.wordpress....
https://hercommonplaceblog.wordpress....
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April 22, 2013fiction G2265w 2006
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews