Elizabeth Goudge (publicity photo, via Wikipedia)
Today is Elizabeth Goudge’s birthday, and the start of Elizabeth Goudge Week over at The Emerald City Book Review. I’m so glad that Lori decided to celebrate by dedicating a whole week to Goudge, because she’s one of my favorite authors of all time.
The daughter of a clergyman, Elizabeth Goudge was born on April 24, 1900. She began writing in her late twenties or early thirties, starting with three plays, but when she submitted them for publication, a perspicacious editor told her to try novels instead. She did, and remained a best-selling author from the 1930s through the 1970s. She was painfully shy, and never married, spending her younger years caring for her invalid mother and serving (reluctantly) as her father’s hostess. After her mother’s death, she developed a friendship with a younger woman, Jessie Munro, who took care of her as she had her own mother. Elizabeth Goudge died in 1984, just a few weeks shy of her 84th birthday.
Goudge’s books have had a special place in my heart since I first encountered Linnets and Valerians in a London bookshop as a child, and fell in love with it. In my teens and twenties, I devoured her adult books, finding in them a sensitivity to place, a compassion for human failings, and a strong sense of a creative force for good that continue to resonate deep within me.
Goudge’s children’s books, particularly Linnets and Valerians and The Little White Horse, might today be classed as magical realism (The Little White Horse edges into fantasy.) They’re usually set in the 19th or early 20th century, often in the years of Goudge’s own childhood. Goudge never lost the ability to remember the magic of childhood, and it shines forth in her children’s books as well as some of her adult books.
Her adult books range from historical to contemporary fiction – contemporary meaning the period during which she was writing. Almost all are set in England, though her first adult novel, Island Magic (1934) takes place on the island of Guernsey and was based on tales her mother told her about her own family and childhood. Elizabeth herself grew up in Wells (the Torminster of A City of Bells and its sequels) in Somerset and later Ely in Cambridgeshire, but spent many happy vacations with her grandparents in Guernsey; Green Dolphin Street is also set there.
While Goudge’s books sold well, they rarely received critical praise. The Little White Horse (1946) won a Carnegie medal, an award given annually to the best children’s book by a British subject. But her adult fiction was often labeled “sentimental” and dismissed as popular fiction. Ironically, when an Indian writer, Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen, plagiarized The Rosemary Tree (often verbatim) in the 1990s, it was lauded by critics, though little had been changed except the setting and the religion of the major characters. (The plagiarism was spotted and reported to Goudge’s original publisher by a reader; Aikath-Gyaltsen died several months later, possibly of suicide.)
My own feeling is that her contemporary critics were led astray by Goudge’s compassion for her characters, which they mistakenly read as sentimentality, and by the Anglican faith that lies at the heart of her books, whether unspoken or overt. They failed to credit the care with which her books are crafted and her deep understanding of human nature. Optimism – and Goudge’s books are rife with optimism, though never of a shallow or facile nature – is often dismissed as naive by those who consider themselves sophisticated, and no doubt that too contributed to literary critics’ disregard for her work.
Every Goudge fan has their favorites. J. K. Rowling sparked a renewed interest in The Little White Horse when she mentioned it as one of her favorite children’s fantasies, and it remains one of mine as well. But I’m equally fond of Linnets and Valerians, of A City of Bells and its more fantastical sequel The Blue Hills, of Pilgrim’s Inn and Gentian Hill and The Rosemary Tree. There are others I plan to return to now that I’m older: The Dean’s Watch, The Scent of Water, The White Witch. While I enjoyed them when I first read them in my twenties, I think I will find them both richer and deeper now.
Some of Goudge’s books remain out of print, but The Little White Horse is still available, and Hendrickson Publishing has begun reprinting some of Goudge’s better-known adult novels in trade paperback and (more recently) in e-book format.* It’s also possible to find most of her out-of-print titles through Abe Books. I do hope you’ll give her books a try.
* A word of caution if you buy ebooks: The Kindle edition of Gentian Hill, which was not produced by Hendrickson, appears to have been scanned and OCR’d without proofreading; there are numerous errors. Do yourself a favor and find a used physical copy instead.
Sources: Goodreads; Wikipedia; “A Short Biography of Elizabeth Goudge” (Deborah Gaudin)
© The Bookwyrm’s Hoard
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review
What a wonderful post. Thank you!
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review recently posted…Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week: Introduction
Lark_Bookwyrm
I’m glad you like it! Thank you for hosting this – EG deserves so much more love and respect as a writer than she gets these days.
R_Hunt @ View From My Home
The only book of hers I’ve heard of before is Green Dolphin Street, and I don’t know where I heard it.
I am embarrassed that I thought I’d read this author when I first read your post title, to find out I had read *Eileen Goudge*, no relation, yikes. Thanks for introducing us to this classy author who definitely deserves more attention. I skimmed through the blurbs of her books–nice!
R_Hunt @ View From My Home recently posted…Weekly Wrap Up- 4/24-4/26/15
Lark_Bookwyrm
No worries – people confuse the two all the time! I did, too; the first time I saw an Eileen book I got all excited and thought it was a new book by Elizabeth. Eileen Goudge actually is a distant relative of Elizabeth Goudge; she said so in a Goodreads Q&A. But their books are very different, from what I can tell. (I’ve never read Eileen’s books.)
kimbacaffeinate
Beautiful post Lark. I have only read one of books the White Witch but I loved it..you have me wanting to find more.
kimbacaffeinate recently posted…A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Lark_Bookwyrm
She’s really worth reading!
Cleo @ Classical Carousel
(I think my first comment was eaten ……. :-Z )
What a beautiful post. Thank you so much. You’ve told me so much about Elizabeth Goudge that I didn’t know, and now I can enjoy her books even more. I’ve chosen to read Island Magic and I agree with you about the mislabelling of sentimentality. Goudge shows unusual insight into human nature and portrays a caring and a reality in her character that is rather unique. I’m so glad that I’m participating in this event and can get to know Goudge even better!
Cleo @ Classical Carousel recently posted…Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week April 24-30
Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you! “Goudge shows unusual insight into human nature and portrays a caring and a reality in her character that is rather unique.” Yes, and beautifully put!
It’s ages since I read Island Magic and I’ve half-forgotten it; I should probably re-read it soon.