Four French Holidays: Daphne Du Maurier, Stella Gibbons, Rumer Godden, Margery Sharp and their novels inspired by France

by Anne Hall

Four popular novelists of the same generation each wrote a novel inspired by a holiday that the author spent in France. In the nineteen-fift ies, Rumer Godden basedThe Greengage Summeron her recollections of her family’s 1923 battlefield- tour manqué in the Champagne region. Margery Sharp’s 1936 holiday in Southern France led toStill WatersandThe Nutmeg Tree: both the short story and the novel are set in and around the region of Aix-les-Bains. In 1955, Daphne du Maurier first visited the department of Sarthe to research French family history; the novelThe Scapegoatwas the immediate result of the holiday. And in 1966, Stella Gibbons’ last trip to the continent took the form of a visit to an old friend in her summer home near Grenoble. The stay is obliquely refl ected in The Snow-Woman, in which a similar holiday leads a never-
married septuagenarian to experience a renaissance of sorts.

Genres: Nonfiction

203 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2023

About the author

Anne Hall taught French at the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley, and later English at the Université de Tours and the Université de Provence in France, where she still lives.

Reviews

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The title, the featured authors (Daphne du Maurier, Stella Gibbons, Rumer Godden and Margery Sharp) and the sumptuous cover featuring the art of Duncan Grant made this book a must-buy for me - despite the rather steep purchase price. Unfortunately, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it; and indeed, I would warn many of my reading friends against it.

The raison d’être of the book is to trace how transformative French holidays ended up featuring in the fiction of the above-named authors. Anne Hall dutifully connects the dots for the reader - as in, Rumer Godden stayed in the Hotel des Violettes and then later recreated it as the Hotel des Oeillets in her novel The Greengage Summer - but these parallels are really not all that interesting unless you have read the books yourself and passionately care about bibliographical readings of the books that you enjoy. I generally do enjoy that sort of thing, and yet I still found it all a bit pointless. I couldn’t decide if it was better to have read the books or not; if you have read the featured books, you will be somewhat bored by the detailed summaries Hall provides. If you haven’t, you will find the exercise somewhat pointless AND you will probably be annoyed by the way she spoils all of the plots. I know many readers who avoid prefaces for this very reason, and this treatment is much, much worse.

Without the requisite book summaries, there’s actually not enough material to make up a book at all - which is why there is a bit of padding included, including writing excerpts from such usual travelogue suspects as Patrick Leigh Fermor. There are also some old photographs and maps, but really I cannot say that any of it was particularly edifying. I did end up feeling interested in reading Sharp’s The Nutmeg Tree and du Maurier’s The Scapegoat for myself, but otherwise, it was all rather disappointing and I had to force myself to finish it. For the week I was reading it, though, I did - admittedly - get a lot of pleasure from seeing it on my coffee table.

[Jenna Gareis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Five things about Four French Holidays by Anne Hall 📚📚

1. If you watch my Booktube videos, you might know this was an extremely expensive completely accidental pre-order.
2. I enjoy all four authors featured and I love France so I decided to give it a try.
3. There are four long chapters, lots of photographs, and a brief, narrative of the author’s experience with France through the lens of their book(s) set in France. Pretty much exactly what it says on the cover.
4. This book was a slog to read. It’s dull. It’s mostly recycled information if you’ve already read up on these authors, and if you’ve missed one of the books mentioned in the author’s chapter you’re done for because the whole thing is one big spoiler.
5. For the cost of this slim and uninspiring volume, I recommend you get it from your library if you’re inclined to pick it up.

[Naomi J · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the inside cover:
“Four popular novelists of the same generation each wrote a novel inspired by a holiday that the author spent in France.
In the 1950s Rumer Godden based “The Greengage Summer” on her recollections of her family’s 1923 battlefield- tour manqué in the Champagne region. Margery Sharp’s 1936 holiday in southern France led to ‘Still Waters’ and ‘The Nutmeg Tree’ both the short story and the novel are set in and around the region of Aix-les-Bains. In 1995, Daphne du Maurier first visited the department of Sarthe to research French family history; the novel “The Scapehoat” was the immediate result of the holiday. And in 1966, Stella Gibbons’ last trip to the continent took the form of a visit to an old friend in her summer home near Grenoble. The stay is obliquely reflected in “The Snow Woman” in which a similar holiday leads to a never-married septuagenarian to experience a renaissance of sorts.”

My Thoughts
This book is a wonderfully examination of the real life events which led to four successful female authors writing four magnificent novels based on holidays in France.

It is an academic work with lots of detailing of the plot of the four novels so it is definitely worth reading the four novels before reading their chapter in this book.
There are also plenty of photographs of the actual people and places which appear or inspired characters which appear in the novels which one only fully appreciates having read the novel being discussed.

I loved this book for teaching me more about my beloved “Greengage Summer” and introducing me to three other novels I would have never discovered if it hadn’t been for reading this book.

Please see my reviews of each novel discussed in this book and also take time to appreciate the beautiful Duncan Grant cover which is just perfect and will be loved by any Francophile like me.

The four novels are:
The Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden
The Nutmeg Tree - Margery Sharp
The Scapegoat - Daphne Du Maurier
The Snow Woman - Stella Gibbons

[Rex Fausett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for France, the French and Paris so this library book had appeal. It does read like a thesis, not always smoothly readable but I did learn about some French places I might like to call in on during my next visit. Only four stars, possibly three and a half.