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A 1935 realist novel set against the backdrop of industrialization in England by someone I’ve never heard of, Francis Brett Young. Apparently he wrote dozens of novels, all listed in the frontispiece. I never heard of any of them, but it has rather good plot and character, though the prose is padded at times. It’s curious to read about towns and whole regions of England, with their different characters and accents, that I’ve never heard of. So many pockets of sub-cultures in such a tiny country.

Social history of "Monks Norton", Worcestershire. Superb wood engravings, and they seem to be actual prints?

“And then, of a sudden, the trees seem to fall back on either side, disclosing with the effect of a fanfare of trumpets breaking through a murmur of muted strings, above, an enormous expanse of blue sky, and below, a wide sward of turf, most piercingly green within the woods’ dense circlet. And in the midst of the green sward stood a house.”

That house was White Ladies, and it quite captivated Arabella Tinsley III. It became her passion, but it quickly turned into her obsession. And obsession can be such a destructive emotion…

But I had been reading for quite some time before Bella and I laid eyes on White Ladies. Francis Brett Young offered up every detail of Bella’s family background and early life, in a wonderful piece of storytelling, wrapped up in quite lovely prose. It began with Jasper Mortimer, who left his home in Shropshire to seek his fortune. He hadn’t travelled far when he met Arabella I, who had become the son her father never had and took on his family business with great aplomb. Jasper married her, and built an even bigger business, seizing so many opportunities that industrialisation presented. One day Arabella III would inherit the fortune, and the business, that he created. But she didn’t know that. Indeed she didn’t know them. Because Arabella II ran away with a young man who had been employed in her father’s drawing office. And then she died when her daughter was still an infant, and Arabella III’s father gave her to his parents to bring up, while he struck out alone.

Bella grew; she was educated; she lost her grandparents; she found a friend who offered help, but at a very high price; she found employment; she fell in love; she had her heart broken; she lost her job; she learned some very hard lessons. Then, quite unexpectedly, she inherited her fortune. And she learned a great deal that she hadn’t known about her background.

It was very soon after that Bella saw White Ladies, and that story of passion and obsession began. She went to extraordinary lengths to track down the house’s absentee owner, to take possession, to raise the house to the status that she knew it deserved. But she couldn’t understand that others didn’t see her house as she did, and that they had dreams, ideas, lives of their own. That would be her downfall. But it wouldn’t be her end.

Bella was a wonderful character. She wasn’t always likeable, indeed she was often maddening, but I could see what made her the woman she became, and I never stopped loving her spirit and her determination.

And what a story! So many wonderful settings. Factory floors. Schools. A town house. A Greek island. And that wonderful house in the country. They were all so wonderfully evoked, so beautifully described that I could have been there. And so many wonderful characters. Far too many to list, but I have to mention a few. A teacher who takes an interest but in the end expects a little too much. An employer who will be benevolent, but who will turn when her rules are broken. A long-serving housekeeper who guards her house jealously. There really is so much there, but there is nothing that isn’t a vital part of the story. And it’s all woven together beautifully, into an utterly engaging and utterly readable story, with lovely themes and details echoing all of the way through.

I believe that Francis Brett Young paid just as much attention to the details of his novel as Bella did to her beloved White Ladies. It’s a big, rather old-fashioned book, and I loved it. I’ve had to take it back to the library, but I’ve ordered a couple more books by Francis Brett Young from reserve stock to fill the gap that it left behind, and I am hoping that he will become an author to cherish.

Two books in one volume isn't odd, but two books in one volume where the books are upside down from each other is a bit of weird setup. It works; it's just a bit disorienting. The two books in this particular volume, Sinister House, by Leland Hall and Cold Harbour, by Francis Brett Young, are from a series by Hippocampus Press called "Lovecraft's Library" which features nine volumes -- three doubles, like this one, and six novels -- all of which, according to the Hippocampus website, offers "the modern reader a selection of works that Lovecraft himself read and admired, and that he commented upon in his letters or elsewhere." This is my first foray into the series, and it was a bit of spooky, creepy fun -- best suited for reading after dark or during a night when you're all tucked up in bed and thunder, lightning and rain are all rampaging outside.

First: Cold Harbour, by Francis Brett Young. Originally published in 1924, most of this haunted-house story takes place in the West Midlands area of England. As the story opens, a group of friends are together on a terrace somewhere on the Italian Island of Capri. While they are enjoying the night, two of the guests, Ronald and Evelyn Wake, reveal their strange adventures at an old house in England's Black Country, keeping their friends spellbound with their eerie tale.

Cold Harbour is an old-fashioned and atmospheric haunted house story with a twist. It may seem pretty tame to today's horror readers who thrive on gore and grossouts, but for an old-fashioned tale of hauntings, it's pretty scary -- especially when all is finally revealed. And it's fun.

Coming now to Leland Hall's Sinister House, this book is another haunted house story, which takes place in an old house on a cliff. Published originally in 1919, it is the story of two young newlyweds who have come to live in the Hudson Valley. Rather than follow the lead of their very good friends Pierre and Annette Smith who have settled nearby in a more modern housing development built especially for commuters, Eric and Julia Grier decide to take residence in an eerie old house in the woods that stands on a cliffside. Eric has to commute for work; when he is away he can't stand being apart from his wife; while she misses him when he's gone, she is more worried about him returning. It isn't long until Pierre realizes what's going on -- there's some sort of force within the house that wants to separate Pierre from anyone who cares about him, making them feel uneasy in his presence, and this includes his wife Julia and his friends. Pierre's little son is hypersensitive to these haunted goings-on, so much so that before long Pierre must tell Eric he can no longer come to the Smith's home. But there's more to this presence than just its isolation of Eric -- and soon Julia realizes that her very life is in danger.

Sinister House has it all -- a creepy old house with a locked room where no one dares to go, dark woods that hide it from the outside, and an ongoing sense of impending doom that creeps under your skin. At the same time, the book is also a product of its times -- while the author is great at building and maintaining a chilling atmosphere, sometimes the story heads off in a direction reminiscent of a romantic melodrama. There are also a few issues about his ghosts that make no sense if spirits are the ethereal creatures they're supposed to be -- can ghosts really trip and stumble over each other?

In spite of a few misses, Sinister House is a fun read; together with Cold Harbour there are a few hours of hair-raising entertainment to be found.If you're into old ghostly tales that depend heavily on atmosphere, you'll like this book; if that's not your thing and you prefer brain-eating zombies or other more in-your-face kind of horror, you'll definitely want to pass. I liked it, but I'm much more into creating scary scenes in my head than having them already splashed all over the pages with not much left to the imagination.

(read June, 2012)

This is a big old book, at just under 700 pages. Typically for Brett Young, he doesn't use 30 words where 300 will do just as well, so it took a few pages at least to settle in again to his rather wordy, flowery style of writing. However this is a marvelous novel, a huge family drama and a history of Black Country industries during the later part of the nineteenth, and early twentieth, century. The story of Arabella Tinsley lll is one of what comes to be an unreasonable obsession. An obsession over a house. This obsession drives everything she does, affecting her relationships, as others begin to doubt her reason. So the reader never really expects a happy resolution. Bella as she is known is not always very likable, yet at the same time it is possible to sympathise with her. As ever Brett Young's descriptions of the Midlands countryside, and the grim industrial Black Country landscape of these days -is evocative and deeply affectionate. As with other FBY novel's I have read, this is enormously readable and quite a page turner. I have found myself reading very late indeed the last two evenings in particular.½

An interesting novel based in 19th century South Africa. Diamond mines, gold fields, battles between Boers and English... In this book the various parties are personified in the grown children of one family.

I'm not sure I understand the issues any better than before, except that the people involved don't seem to be communicating even when speaking the same language.

This is a long book for an early Penguin. Instead of the frequently encountered 256 pages, it runs to 352 with a font so small it was difficult to read without glasses. And although I enjoyed reading the book, it seemed unnecessarily long and descriptive. It was almost as if the author was unsure of his primary intention. Sometimes it seemed to be the story of Abner Fellows, a coal miner from Halesby, who finds it necessary to leave his hometown and then heads to Wales, working as a rural labourer. At others, it was as if the author wanted to tell the story of this specific time and place, this specific region of England, and the life that was lived in it. The story of Abner then seemed simply a literary device to achieve this end. With these two competing purposes it took a lot of words to tell Abner's story. Continued

First Published in 1921, this Francis Brett Young novel can still be bought in paperback off Amazon, one of a few FBY novels that House of stratus re-published a few years ago.There is something quite definitely Hardyesque about the character of Gabrielle, a wild and beautiful girl who marries a much older man at the behest of her father. I enjoyed FBY's writing, the landscape always seems to raise up off the pages and surround the reader. This time though instead of the Brett Young's familiar landscape of the Midlands we have the first part of the book set in rural Ireland. Later we move to Devon, a place Brett Young lived and worked for a time and so knew well, and yet for me the most evocotive section of the book was that set in Ireland. Gabrielle is not a happy character, her life not an easy one, but I found her very likeable although rather passive at times. There is, though, I thought a clever little twist at the end - something to get the reader wondering. The Tragic Bride is much shorter novel than many FBY novel's, but Brett Young was a gifted story teller, and this was a very good story and well written.

I have enjoyed several FBY novels before - all of which have been set in the familiar landscape of FBY's mildlands. Having read a biography of FBY I knew he had connections with Africa having served there, and lived there for a time. Several of his novels are set either partly or wholly in Africa and as another bookcrosser gave me a copy of the sequel to They seek a country - I thought I had better read this one so I could later read the sequel. This novel style was easily recognisable - working men, changes bringing unrest and conflict, love affairs running less than smoothly. However once the story moved to Africa - I found I soon bitterly missed FBY's familair landscape - and began to feel bizarrely homesick. However the characters are wonderfully drawn - real people as always. The plot is fast paced and the novel, as so often with FBY becomes hard to put down. Although I have to admit it is my least favourite so far - I will read the sequel - but only after reacquainting myself with FBY's wonderful midlands.

Loaned from Ali

Ali and I are going on a Francis Brett Young Day on Saturday and the event includes a screening of the film of this book. So my week off was an ideal opportunity to get it read.

Anotther unputdownable novel. Jonathan always seems to have to bend to the needs of his younger and more attractive brother Harold. Whether it's education, his inheritance, even their loves, Harold seems to get the cream of the crop. Jonathan works hard and seems to be improving his medical practice with the help of the quiet and lovely Miss Hammond, when the First World War comes along and turns society upside-down.

A lot happens, and in the inexorable fate of the characters, their isolation in a small community with watching eyes all around, and the twists and turns of the plot remind me of some of the Canadian novels I've read recently (I'm thinking Mary Lawson here) as well as the more commonly compared Hardy. I liked, as always, the detail that went into the book - we know exactly how a Black Country medical practice was set up and run, how it looked, what there was on the tables, how the community was structured. And somehow, even with this detail and the usual lyrical descriptions, you still bowl along with the story, not getting bogged down. I liked the Cricket Ground and the University Medical School featuring, of course, too!

Somewhat of a shocking ending, but fate will out and I shouldn't have expected anything else. I'm looking forward to the day (although I still don't feel I've read enough of the novels) and the film (and I know when to look away now!)

First published in 1924 this FBY novel is set in the fishing port of Brixham, where FBY himself began his medical career after qualifying in Birmingham. The story mainly concerns Jeffery and Nesta Kenar and their lodger Reuban Henshall and the girl he marries Ruth Parnall. The reader can't help but fear that Reuban's fate is sealed when he borrows money to buy his boat. At the same time he decides to marry, and begins to get furniture on HP and find a house. The money goes out faster than it comes in, and what does come in is generally owed. Ruth is young and inexpierenced in house keeping matters, and gets into bad habits aided and abetted by some of her neighbours. The tragedy that comes is inevitable. As with other FBY books, this novel paints a vivid and fairly awful picture of life for hard working folk, who never have much and for whom life is dreadfully hard.

This is the 6th novel by Francis Brett Young I have read. I can't recommend his novels enough - especially (though not exclusively) to fellow Midlanders, although the fact that his novels have fallen out of print does pose a problem. The later ones particularly are not too hard to find, and a few were republished in paperback a few years ago and they can sometimes be picked up too.
Dr Bradley Remembers is one of the longer books, my copy a hefty 1938 hardback edition running to some 740 odd pages. This again is a gloriously old fashioned novel. Flowery language - which I don't mind at all -FBY never uses ten words where fifty will do just as well : ) proper human dramas and tension. Real people inhabit the pages of Francis Brett Young's novels, in this case real Black country folk of the late 18th and early 19th Century. In the company of the wonderful John Bradley the reader is taken from a humble village in Shropshire of the 1870's through medical training at North Bromwich (Birmingham) in the 1880's, and through 50 turbulent years in general practice in Sedgebury (Sedgley in the Black Country) from the late 1880's untill the 1930's. When John Bradley moves to Sedgebury in 1888 with his new young wife, the landscape is very different to the landscape that exists 50 years later. Industrialisation comes to Sedgebury during those years, and like Thomas Hardy - who I have likened him to before - FBY depicts brilliantly the effects of progress and modernisation on the ordinary people of the area. Overall though this is just a hugely readable and hard to put down book.

An excellent read. In fact, so absorbing that, when I got to a particularly exciting bit yesterday morning, I nearly missed my bus to work!

A Hardyesque chronicle covering the early years of a girl, Jenny Wilden, born into poverty and hard physical work in the Black Country. She is hived off to her grandfather who lives in an Edenic, pastoral, forest landscape in Shropshire. Although more hard work and poverty is her due, she learns to love and identify with her rural landscape, and to see its older values in contrast to the urban environments of the industrial Black Country. Her cousin David and his dad Jem in turn contrast Far Forest with the grimy excitements of North Bromwich (our Birmingham!) and the coal and smoke ridden valleys of South Wales.

Jenny and David have a hard few years of it, separately, as they learn about love and life, hardship and loss. Connected by more than their family, they lose track of each other as they follow the paths available to people of their class and time. The Boer War impacts but it's mainly environment and family that affect their lives.

A little melodramatic and Mary Webb-like at times, but this is no problem - it's an older and slower read with intricate descriptions of nature and town and the events fit in with the characters and their time. As mentioned above, at times I couldn't put it down. If Jenny and David survive all the onslaughts on their characters and very survival, then surely they deserve some respite...?

This is certainly very different from the other FBY books I have read. But I was anxious to read it for that reason. It reads like so many old fashioned gothic type stories of the past - and is therfore hard to put down, and very readable. Like other stories of this type, however you need to read it for what it is - and not take it too seriously. The novel opens with Evelyn and Ronald Wake sitting down on a terrace in Italy one evening, in the company of an unnamed author and clergyman. From here they tell their incredible story. Their listeners chip in from time to time with various theories of a theological or acedemic nature in a bid to understand exactly what did happen in Cold Harbour. A good read all in all, but it makes me wonder why FBY suddenly wrote such a different type of book.

As with other FBY books, this really brings to life the whole period and region. The accents of the people of the people of the Black country and Worcestershire come across strongly. FBY puts me in mind slightly of Thomas Hardy - inasmuch as the people he wrote about were real. They lived harsh and difficult lives, the ending are not always happy, or sometimes characters have some pretty bad things happen to them on the way to a happy ending. This is hugely readable, and the 550 odd pages don't seem as long as with other books. I have to confess I am writing this review when I still haven't quite finished the book, but I will finish it today, and I was by a computer so...

This is in no way a happy story, but it is a brilliant novel, and I loved every page. First published in 1928 it is wiritten in FBY usual rather flowery style, but is hugely readable and I engaged with the characters instantly. It paints an amazingly clear picture of medicine and general practice in the early twentieth century, before the NHS. The living conditions of the poor in the Black Country of this period are discribed with unflinching honesty - and that alone could make this a very memorable book. However there are so many dramatic twists and turns in the telling of the story of Dr Jonathan Dakers life, over about 600 pages, that it is amazing that this book has ceased to be printed. I finished this book a few hours ago, and I can't get these characters out of my head. I loved it, but it left me feeling sad.

The first Francis Brett Young I have read - and the first of many I hope

This novel written in 1942 - is about two middle aged sisters who come to live at North Bromich in their family home with their elderly father. Upon his death they find it difficult to make ends meet. At this point s timely bequest comes their way in the shape of a villa and estate in Italy from a disreputable uncle who died intestate. They are met by Salvatore - their new butler who helps them manage their estate - but whose family once many years before owned the land themselves. Salvatore is a younger handsome man, and quickly makes himself indespensible to Agnes in particular. Ellen the younger sister is unsettled by him, and hears things from another local Englishman which worry her further.

I have to say I loved every page of this book, and could hardly put it down.

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