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The Other Day
Memoir.
The Other Day was commissioned in 1935. The literary agent Michael Joseph told Dorothy Whipple that ‘he was going to set up as a publisher and wanted me to write a book – an autobiography – for him to publish. I kept on saying I couldn’t do it and he kept on saying I could’ (Random Commentary p. 60).
Despite her misgivings – a few weeks later she wrote ‘I hate my autobiography. How can I drivel on like this for 80,000 words?’ – she had finished by the New Year of 1936. Michael Joseph was delighted. ‘He says The Other Day is far the best thing I have done yet [she had by then published Young Anne, High Wages, Greenbanks and They Knew Mr Knight]. He says I don’t know what a good book I have written. I glowed with sherry and happiness.’
It is indeed a delightful book, describing in a charming and insightful way DW’s first twelve years (she was born in 1893). Each chapter describes her at a different age, from three years old to twelve, with her large and very happy family in the background and foreground. Her parents were sensible and loving, her siblings affectionate and rumbustious, her grandmother kind and understanding (she is evoked in Greenbanks).
The Other Day was commissioned in 1935. The literary agent Michael Joseph told Dorothy Whipple that ‘he was going to set up as a publisher and wanted me to write a book – an autobiography – for him to publish. I kept on saying I couldn’t do it and he kept on saying I could’ (Random Commentary p. 60).
Despite her misgivings – a few weeks later she wrote ‘I hate my autobiography. How can I drivel on like this for 80,000 words?’ – she had finished by the New Year of 1936. Michael Joseph was delighted. ‘He says The Other Day is far the best thing I have done yet [she had by then published Young Anne, High Wages, Greenbanks and They Knew Mr Knight]. He says I don’t know what a good book I have written. I glowed with sherry and happiness.’
It is indeed a delightful book, describing in a charming and insightful way DW’s first twelve years (she was born in 1893). Each chapter describes her at a different age, from three years old to twelve, with her large and very happy family in the background and foreground. Her parents were sensible and loving, her siblings affectionate and rumbustious, her grandmother kind and understanding (she is evoked in Greenbanks).
253 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
5 people are currently reading
236 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Whipple
29 books344 followersBorn in 1893, DOROTHY WHIPPLE (nee Stirrup) had an intensely happy childhood in Blackburn as part of the large family of a local architect. Her close friend George Owen having been killed in the first week of the war, for three years she worked as secretary to Henry Whipple, an educational administrator who was a widower twenty-four years her senior and whom she married in 1917. Their life was mostly spent in Nottingham; here she wrote Young Anne (1927), the first of nine extremely successful novels which included Greenbanks (1932) and The Priory (1939). Almost all her books were Book Society Choices or Recommendations and two of them, They Knew Mr Knight (1934) and They were Sisters (1943), were made into films. She also wrote short stories and two volumes of memoirs. Someone at a Distance (1953) was her last novel. Returning in her last years to Blackburn, Dorothy Whipple died there in 1966.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
July 10, 2023
Re-read 10/07/23
A charming memoir of Dorothy Whipple's early childhood before WW1. She tells us of her life in the town, racing caterpillars and pulling up her father's garden for the almshouse residents, her school life, and later on, her life in the country.
An interesting account of a bygone time.
A charming memoir of Dorothy Whipple's early childhood before WW1. She tells us of her life in the town, racing caterpillars and pulling up her father's garden for the almshouse residents, her school life, and later on, her life in the country.
An interesting account of a bygone time.
January 14, 2025
Charming! It just gets better and better as it goes. The last fourth was my very favorite. I could see echoes of Greenbanks in Dorothy’s own story, so it is serendipitous that I just re-read it. This is very much a child’s perspective and not an adult reflecting on her childhood. Occasionally, Dorothy makes a comment from her writerly adult perspective but it’s mostly to comment on how foreign the child mind is to an adult and vice versa. I love how she gets to tell stories to her three younger siblings as she is watering and tending the seed in her that flowered into being a novelist. I wish there was a sequel to this about her teenage and young adult years! I would so like to know. I love Dorothy’s voice and would put her name in for an answer of a figure in the past I would like to have tea with. Now I have a hankering to re-read both Young Anne and Random Commentary. I want to remember what she says about her parents and siblings in the latter.
July 4, 2023
But I was slow in learning that if you wish to save your vision from destruction at the hands of other people, you must keep it secret.
A beautifully told memory of childhood. Without pathos and sermons. With a gentle touch of the child's perspective.
I understood what kind of childhood and family Dorothy Whipple had (although, the book was more like a bunch of stories than a full account of the first twelve years of her life). I also got the picture of the world (society) in which she grew up. There was fun, sadness, anger, and happiness - all that contain most childhoods.
Very satisfying book. I would have liked to read more of her memoir, sadly it is the only one. Fortunately, she wrote novels. And for sure, I am going to read them (I haven't read, so far).
[4.5 stars]
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July 9, 2012Dorothy Whipple’s memoir of her early years is as enjoyable as any of her novels. She beautifully captures the heights of ecstasy and horror present (often in rapid succession) in even an outwardly uneventful childhood, as well as the extent to which children and adults dwell side-by-side in mutually inaccessible worlds. I was sorry to finish reading it.
August 14, 2011
This memoir captures without sentiment the author's memories of her Edwardian childhood, including surreptitiously punching down the bread dough, sitting making page after page of pothooks in her first school, cutting down all her Father's prized dahlias to make a garden for the workhouse inmates she just met, and escaping a bull in the countryside. Full of incident and personalities, clearly and sometimes humorously recalled. No surprise that this observant child grew up to be a novelist.
" The cupboard was in the wall beside the fireplace. I opened it and was amazed. Its sides were whitewashed and as lumpy as buttermilk. It smelled of pepper and cake crumbs; a nice holiday smell. The thing in it were homely and comfortable. A mottled brown teapot, highly glazed, with a pouting expression about the spout. The peppers and salts were of pot instead of silver, and the cups and saucers had life-size violets painted upon them. It would be nice and different to have tea out of them, I thought."
" The cupboard was in the wall beside the fireplace. I opened it and was amazed. Its sides were whitewashed and as lumpy as buttermilk. It smelled of pepper and cake crumbs; a nice holiday smell. The thing in it were homely and comfortable. A mottled brown teapot, highly glazed, with a pouting expression about the spout. The peppers and salts were of pot instead of silver, and the cups and saucers had life-size violets painted upon them. It would be nice and different to have tea out of them, I thought."
February 13, 2025
"They smiled at me. The fire was warm behind me. Their faces were dear and familiar. My life, like the life of most children, was full of hidden agitations; but I kept putting into the port of home, as now, and finding myself relieved of stress, sheltered...sometimes things were wrong at home. But at other times this balm fell on us all."
...
I just read Dorothy Whipple's early novel Greenbanks and I wasn't too taken with it. It doesn't have the same force or quality as her later novels. But reading this memoir directly after was exactly the right thing to do as you can see so many biographical details she wrote into Greenbanks, especially regarding her relationship with her grandmother. Greenbanks may not be a novel of hers that I'll reread, but reading The Other Day made me appreciate it much more.
Anyway I just loved this memoir so much. And it was an especial treat to read the gorgeous Slightly Foxed edition. Dorothy Whipple has such a gift for writing children in her fiction and this memoir of her childhood sheds light on that gift. She was a sensitive child and remembered well what it felt like to be misunderstood by adults.
"Thus do we grow older and come to marvel in our turn that the young understand us no better than we understand them."
...
I just read Dorothy Whipple's early novel Greenbanks and I wasn't too taken with it. It doesn't have the same force or quality as her later novels. But reading this memoir directly after was exactly the right thing to do as you can see so many biographical details she wrote into Greenbanks, especially regarding her relationship with her grandmother. Greenbanks may not be a novel of hers that I'll reread, but reading The Other Day made me appreciate it much more.
Anyway I just loved this memoir so much. And it was an especial treat to read the gorgeous Slightly Foxed edition. Dorothy Whipple has such a gift for writing children in her fiction and this memoir of her childhood sheds light on that gift. She was a sensitive child and remembered well what it felt like to be misunderstood by adults.
"Thus do we grow older and come to marvel in our turn that the young understand us no better than we understand them."
November 13, 2022
This is a glorious collection of autobiographical tales of Dorothy Whipple’s childhood in Pendle and Blackburn in the early 1900s. It’s a beautiful, relaxing, beguiling and well written book about a kind of childhood that I would imagine just doesn’t exist anymore; adults are remote, awe-inspiring and vaguely terrifying, roaming the neighbourhood, hills and parks is what you do all day and hair-brained schemes are seen through to their end. This is also a fascinating historical document, fixed in its particular time through references to friends who would go on to die in WW1, servants who stay with the family for thirty years, and younger siblings succumbing quickly to childhood illnesses that have now been nipped in the bud by penicillin. Sad, happy, funny and affecting this has a universality that plugged me right back into my child-brain. You think as your small self did whilst reading this book and access your inner child. Would recommend to anyone looking for something light.
December 10, 2024
Such a delight! Took me back to my childhood, with all its delights, fears, misunderstandings and discoveries.
July 19, 2023
Rounding down from 3.5 stars.
Beautifully written, but I didn’t find the content as engrossing as Whipple’s fiction.
Favorite quote: “I hated to be organised. I early developed an almost morbid dislike of fixtures; of other people’s fixtures. My own fixtures . . . I yearned towards” (243).
Beautifully written, but I didn’t find the content as engrossing as Whipple’s fiction.
Favorite quote: “I hated to be organised. I early developed an almost morbid dislike of fixtures; of other people’s fixtures. My own fixtures . . . I yearned towards” (243).
June 15, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. I hadn’t realised when I bought it that is was a childhood memoir rather than fiction. But I loved reading about Dorothy’s adventures and her mistakes. It’s made me want to read some of her novels too as she’s clearly a gifted storyteller
September 19, 2023
This was a lovely look back at childhood. She captures emotions felt so strongly as children-- a sense of injustice, of abandonment, and adoration. Such big feelings felt by us when we are so small.
And the anecdotes are delightful.
Highly recommend-- it's aged well!
And the anecdotes are delightful.
Highly recommend-- it's aged well!
February 18, 2023
4.5 stars. Delightful childhood memoir set in the early years of the 20th century.
December 31, 2024
While not as gripping as other Whipple novels, it was interesting to get a glimpse of the author’s early life. Her time spent as a Protestant in a Catholic girls school was an experience I hadn’t seen explored before.
December 23, 2023
3.5 rounded up. Very readable - but I found it a mite depressing…
February 22, 2023
I'd love to read this book again. Fat chance, not in the library now like it was back in the day. None available online to purchase that I can find. I'm thinking keep all my books in case I want to read them again, they never seem to be available afterwards.
October 3, 2024
I didn’t expect this to be so good. What a pleasant surprise. I really need to re-read by Whipple faves ... my memory is so bad it will be like reading them afresh...expect I know that I will like them since I gave them 4 or 5 stars... (and those are: Someone at a Distance; The Priory; Young Anne; High Wages).
This is a memoir of her childhood days, from around age 5 to age 12. It started out good and stayed there for about the first half of the book and then took a swift trajectory upwards...it was just a pure joy to read. I usually do not laugh out loud when reading humorous books...I did with this one at least twice. Couldn’t help myself. So, the memoir was humorous a good part of the time but at other times had some sad recollections from her — for example, a really mean sadistic teacher of hers — and overall was thoughtful and interesting, and a slice of life about a girl growing up. I wrote down some stuff that struck me as either just good writing or funny... (at least to me):
• The pianist emerged from the screened corner and proceeded to perch herself on the piano stool like an elf on a mushroom.
• ...Miss Paton was the Mathematics mistress. She was a dried-up person with a dry manner, dry skin and hair like wisps of hay. All the nature had gone out of her; as if she had been too often to the dry-cleaners.
• (She was at a Roman Catholic Convent school and she was there for her first day and talking to a nun) ...The nun: “I’ll pray for you; I’ll pray to Our Lady of Good Success.” Dorothy: I thanked her, hoping she would not know that I did not know what she meant.
• ...she couldn’t swim because she unlike other girls her age had not learned how to do so at the Convent School ...If we found ourselves in the water, we should be expected, it appeared, to drown with pious resignation and decorum.
• She and her classmates at the Convent School are visited by the bishop which the nuns are very excited about.... it’s a big deal to them and the girls at the school are therefore excited too. They’re supposed to call Jesus ‘my Lord’ but they get mixed up when the bishop arrives. ...We ran to him and fluttered to the floor lie a covey of birds coming to ground. There was something a little forced in our behavior. We knew we were expected to be bright young things, and we were. We laughed and chirped: “Oh my Lord!” and were careful to be enraptured with all he said. ... I knelt bolt upright on my increasingly aching knees, gazing with avid brightness into his face and saying — “oh, my Lord,” and “Ah, my Lord,” when the others did, or only a little behind.
Anyway, please take my word for it, this is a touchingly sweet and funny memoir of an author known for her novels. Persephone Books is a wonderful publishing house, and I should have known this was going to be good, because I read from a Persephone edition. They have the coolest endpapers and distinctive grey dust wrappers with French flaps. The endpapers for this book were taken from a 1900 printed linen textile with stylized tulips and ogee leaf frames @ MODA (which I found out is the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, and which I sadly found out is that it is closed down).
Reviews:
• https://karensbooksandchocolate.blogs...
• (this reviewer got her copy from the library...an interlibrary loan...and was excited that the book came all the way from Illinois to the New York Public Library for her) Dorothy Whipple’s The Other Day: An Autobiography | Nooks & Crannies - ’cus they’re perfect for a book lover (wordpress.com)
• Fantastic review and she told me this which I didn’t know: “Apparently, The Other Day, was a book commissioned in 1935 – published a year later – by Dorothy Whipple’s literary agent. It was not a book she particularly wanted to write. https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2022/...
• This person I think has reviews of all of Whipple’s books here... https://whatmeread.com/tag/dorothy-wh...
This is a memoir of her childhood days, from around age 5 to age 12. It started out good and stayed there for about the first half of the book and then took a swift trajectory upwards...it was just a pure joy to read. I usually do not laugh out loud when reading humorous books...I did with this one at least twice. Couldn’t help myself. So, the memoir was humorous a good part of the time but at other times had some sad recollections from her — for example, a really mean sadistic teacher of hers — and overall was thoughtful and interesting, and a slice of life about a girl growing up. I wrote down some stuff that struck me as either just good writing or funny... (at least to me):
• The pianist emerged from the screened corner and proceeded to perch herself on the piano stool like an elf on a mushroom.
• ...Miss Paton was the Mathematics mistress. She was a dried-up person with a dry manner, dry skin and hair like wisps of hay. All the nature had gone out of her; as if she had been too often to the dry-cleaners.
• (She was at a Roman Catholic Convent school and she was there for her first day and talking to a nun) ...The nun: “I’ll pray for you; I’ll pray to Our Lady of Good Success.” Dorothy: I thanked her, hoping she would not know that I did not know what she meant.
• ...she couldn’t swim because she unlike other girls her age had not learned how to do so at the Convent School ...If we found ourselves in the water, we should be expected, it appeared, to drown with pious resignation and decorum.
• She and her classmates at the Convent School are visited by the bishop which the nuns are very excited about.... it’s a big deal to them and the girls at the school are therefore excited too. They’re supposed to call Jesus ‘my Lord’ but they get mixed up when the bishop arrives. ...We ran to him and fluttered to the floor lie a covey of birds coming to ground. There was something a little forced in our behavior. We knew we were expected to be bright young things, and we were. We laughed and chirped: “Oh my Lord!” and were careful to be enraptured with all he said. ... I knelt bolt upright on my increasingly aching knees, gazing with avid brightness into his face and saying — “oh, my Lord,” and “Ah, my Lord,” when the others did, or only a little behind.
Anyway, please take my word for it, this is a touchingly sweet and funny memoir of an author known for her novels. Persephone Books is a wonderful publishing house, and I should have known this was going to be good, because I read from a Persephone edition. They have the coolest endpapers and distinctive grey dust wrappers with French flaps. The endpapers for this book were taken from a 1900 printed linen textile with stylized tulips and ogee leaf frames @ MODA (which I found out is the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, and which I sadly found out is that it is closed down).
Reviews:
• https://karensbooksandchocolate.blogs...
• (this reviewer got her copy from the library...an interlibrary loan...and was excited that the book came all the way from Illinois to the New York Public Library for her) Dorothy Whipple’s The Other Day: An Autobiography | Nooks & Crannies - ’cus they’re perfect for a book lover (wordpress.com)
• Fantastic review and she told me this which I didn’t know: “Apparently, The Other Day, was a book commissioned in 1935 – published a year later – by Dorothy Whipple’s literary agent. It was not a book she particularly wanted to write. https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2022/...
• This person I think has reviews of all of Whipple’s books here... https://whatmeread.com/tag/dorothy-wh...
October 11, 2024
In her introduction, the editor of this reprint says this is a memoir in which nothing much happens, yet everything happens. I didn't have a pencil handy and so did not note specific passages that rang true with me, but many did. Whipple's opening, a dialogue with her many distractions from starting to write and her other, younger self's reluctance to look back juxtaposed nicely with the end, that same self now reluctant not to continue reminiscing. It's the small, seemingly inconsequential moments of our formative years that can last the longest.
September 9, 2025
Unfair for me to rate this really as I had no idea it was an autobiography when I picked it up in Daunt Books as the cover was entirely plain and no info on the back at all - I simply thought I’d try a Dorothy Whipple book. Alas, an autobiography wasn’t interesting to me as it has no story to it. But I enjoyed imagining her surroundings in that time period and her description of life just the same.
July 23, 2021
I loved this book, particularly for what it described and partly for its sly humour. I quote: ‘We did not attend public baths from the convent. If we found ourselves in the water we should be expected, it appeared, to drown with pious resignation and decorum.”.
Set well over a hundred years ago, it was an interesting read, written from the perspective of a young girl.
A photo of the Coe can be found at https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Coe-Ri...
Set well over a hundred years ago, it was an interesting read, written from the perspective of a young girl.
A photo of the Coe can be found at https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Coe-Ri...
January 5, 2024
Kind of a hard read - life was so different (especially for girls) in the late 1800's/early 1900's. It seems the stories she told were often of very awkward situations and mistakes she made. I'm sure she had a very good life as compared to many in large families during that time, so tried to see the positive bits.
April 13, 2025
A charming memoir looking back on the author's Victorian/Edwardian childhood, written with the author's consistent eye for detail.
What struck me was the contrast between the stuffy, strict household and school with the freedom to travel, play and roam by herself or with friends. Another interesting peep into society a few generations ago.
What struck me was the contrast between the stuffy, strict household and school with the freedom to travel, play and roam by herself or with friends. Another interesting peep into society a few generations ago.
January 11, 2026
A gentle, quaint and rather twee insight into life for the middle class in the 1930's, The Other Day by Dorothy Whipple is a memoir of her nice, cosy early childhood, up to the age of 12.
November 24, 2023
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2023...
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2023...
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews