Provincial Daughter

by R.M. Dashwood

A wonderfully witty precursor to BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY from the real-life daughter -- who appeared as Vicky in her mother's DIARY OF A PROVINCIAL LADY -- of E.M. Delafield

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Domestic, British Literature, Classics

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Verity W · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really made me laugh out loud - so funny and it really is Bridget Jones in the 50s with kids. It also made me want to go back and read Diary of a Provincial lady again.

Lovely light fireside reading - and as a diary it's nice and easy to dip into when you don't have time to site down and read something complicated and involved!

Would definitely recommend.

[Laura Macdonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book amusing, but ultimately inconsistent and unsatisfying. It felt like Dashwood was trying to follow on from her mother's work (Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield), but whereas Delafield's writing I found very funny and left me wanting more, by the end of Provincial Daughter I felt like the author hadn't really found her voice, and it was just a bit 'meh' for me.

[Pat Dedert · Rating 3 out of 5]

For true Provincial Lady fans, a year's diary written very much in the style employed by her mother -- in which nothing very much happens, but all told very amusingly.

[Plum-crazy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this! To me it was a bit like reading about a 1950's Becky Bloomwood...not that the teller of this tale is a shopaholic, I think it's more to do with the way that it's written....it's very easy to read.

It's a slice of English village life in days gone by. Our heroine (I don't remember her name being mentioned!) has to cope with all sorts of daily problems & disasters. Between three young children & a husband who thinks he can do DIY she already her hands full but on top of that she's trying to write a book. What she needs is some help & that arrives in the form of a German au-pair...but does life get any easier? Well, what do you think?....

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quando ho comperato questo romanzo non avevo realizzato che la figlia del titolo non è solo metaforica, in quanto Rosamund Dashwood è la vera figlia di E. M. Delafield (che in realtà si chiamava Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, Dashwood è il suo cognome da sposata, quindi la figlia utilizza il suo cognome da nubile - il marito si chiamava Truelove!) e Provincial Daughter è a tutti gli effetti una 'scopiazzatura' del primo libro di ispirazione autobiografica scritto dalla madre, The Diary of a Provincial Lady, come la stessa autrice ammette:

http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.it/2...

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. Dashwood, E.M. Delafield's daughter, picks up where her mother left off, writing a diary of a provincial wife and mother, but in the 1950s instead of Delafield's 1930s. Unfortunately, she copies her mother's style a little too faithfully and doesn't have the same sharp wit or observational skills. I smiled a few times, but much of the text falls flat. Also, it ends abruptly, like she just got tired of writing and sent it off unfinished.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provincial Daughter by R.M. Dashwood

Daughter of THE Provincial Lady. It’s not really confirmed whether our narrator is daughter Vicky who appeared in the original series, or at least if there were any mega clues I blindly stumbled past them. This thread isn’t really worth pulling at anyway, the only link to our narrator’s childhood is visiting Grandpapa, who, if he is the original Provincial husband Robert, has mellowed spectacularly with old age and is hardly recognizable as the papa who drowns kittens.

Anyhoo, while it’s fun R.M. Dashwood had a crack at continuing her mother’s literary legacy, Provincial Daughter is nothing more than a novelty book. It's a clean cut pastiche of the original, but lacks the gumption that made the first Provincial Lady so readable even through insipid domestic trifles.

[Louise Culmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosamund Dashwood was the daughter of E.M. Delafield, author of the delightful Diary of a Provincial Lady, and this book was written in affectionate imitation of her late mother's style. Her life as a 1960 housewife was very different from that of her mother in the 1930s. Rosamund had no servants, and unlike the Provincial Lady she had to do her own housework and cooking, and look after her three lively little boys herself (no governess either). There is a lot of humour in this account of the daily life of a busy middle class housewife, and I felt quite sorry when I got to the end, I wish she had written more. I would have liked to know what happened about the play, and the school concert, and whether they did move to Scotland, and how Christmas went. She had her mother's gift of making everyday things seem amusing. I think her mother would have enjoyed this book.

[Hilary Tesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The daughter of the “Provincial Lady” tries to emulate her mother’s diary with a an account of about three months of life as wife of a doctor and mother of three boys. They’re short of money, she finds domestic chores and everlasting challenge, the boys are rambunctious and she finds little time to write even if she had the inspiration. The arrival of a German au pair does not improve the situation. The author is very self deprecating which gets a bit wearing as does the long catalogue of things that go wrong or don’t turn out as she hoped. It’s eight years since I read Diary of a Provincial Lady and whilst I don’t remember much of the content, I do remember being charmed by it - this less so.

[Gina House · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5🌟 A fun and entertaining book!! I think I enjoyed this diary even a little bit more than The Diary of a Provincial Lady! I loved how the author wrote certain phrases in bold letters (made them even funnier, in my opinion!) and the household situations were extremely relatable.

Every character in the family was a bit frustrating, but also very likable and real. It would be a family you’d both want (and not want) to live next door to you. This book made me chuckle and I recommend it to anyone who loves a humorous story about domestic family life!

[Mae Leveson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on the style of narrative of her mother, E M Delafield, the author continues the theme of Diary of a Provincial Lady, but set in the 1950s. Although there are many parts of the book I enjoyed, I felt that it lacked some of the witty observations of its predecessor.

[Felicity · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this in the dump bins outside my favourite bookshop. It's a paler imitation of her mother's Provincial Diary, but it's still well ahead of Bridget Jones.

[Dominika · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was simply charming, funny and clever and I loved it. It's a diary of a wife of a doctor and a mother of three boys in the fifties, but the problems and situations we can see in this book are eerily similar to what we can experience in our own houses nowadays. I read this book with great pleasure and I recommend it to everybody, who likes laughing.

From my blog: https://dominikasreadingchallenge.blo...

[Lady Willpower · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a devoted fan of The Diary of a Provincial Lady, so I couldn't wait to read this companion volume by E.M. Delafield's daughter (a.k.a. "Vicky" in the original diary). Dashwood's writing style is slightly different from her mother's, more sarcastic and informal and less intellectual. It's also interesting to compare and contrast the different time periods they lived in (the '30s versus the '50s). For example, the PL had servants, but the PD was a more hands-on housewife, taking care of household chores and spending more time with the children. I was amused to see "Robert" (the PL's husband and the PD's father) make an appearance. He's just as gruff, taciturn, and faintly chauvinistic as ever. The characters and the PD's witty, modern style made me chuckle in several places. Although I'm sad that Dashwood didn't write any other books, I'm going to read more of Delafield's novels, like The Way Things Are. Reading this book made me long to hear her voice again.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by the daughter of 'The Provincial Lady' this is essentially the same book except recounting the everyday events for a housewife and mother in the 1950s. The author points out that you can expect this to seem very familiar, and it certainly does. 'The Provincial Daughter' has troubles with her children, with her staff (a German Au-pair) and with her neighbours; as well as having an infuriating husband to manage. sadly this never quite manages to be as funny as the original books, it will make you smile from time to time, but cannot compare to the joy of 'The Provincial Lady.'

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

E M Delafield's daughter tries to fill her mother's shoes. Unwisely, she does not attempt to forge a writing identity of her own, but simply copycats her mother, merely highlighting the fact that nothing much happens to her, and that the average blogger could have made it more entertaining. (Nothing much ever happened to her mum, either, but if fandom had been around in the 30s, E M Delafield would've been a BNF, for sure. Her daughter & wouldn't.)

[Toni White · Rating 2 out of 5]

The nicest thing I can think of to say about this book is that at least it was mercifully short.
I have read and enjoyed Diary of a Provincial Lady several times and was looking forward to reading of the next generation in the book by the original author's daughter.
I shouldn't have bothered.
I don't recall a single point at which I laughed at this book and was exceptionally thankful to finish it.

[Alison]

written by the daughter of diary if s provincial lady, and in a similar style. married to a country doctor, oddly rather impoverished in the 1950/60s. similar minor humiliations 're dress and behaviour and with local upper crust, actually very like her mother's account. and therefore more anachronistic for the time

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book written in diary form by an aspiring writer who has ended up as a housewife and mother trying to make ends meet in 1950s England. It is quite humourous in parts a light read.

[Sarah Goode · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enjoyed this one! Made me think of all the “keeping up with the jones’s” that happens these days in a different context.

[Squeak2017 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cheerful read but not even half as witty or perceptive as her mother’s book. Not bad but not great either.