I adore the Katharine Hepburn film so I was hoping for a novel. This is a script and all froth and nonsense, quite like the film but without the energetic and wry charm of it's leading characters. I do like the Susan of the play more than the movie though. ( )

This is a lovely little play, and I love Hugh Thomson's illustrations! ( )

J. M. Barrie (b. 1860), the author of Peter Pan, wrote one of my preferred plays. It is called Quality Street *** What happened to women during the Napoleonic wars? They were impoverished and they had to work. For the middle class of the time, it was shameful for a woman to have a job: she should stay at home and be supported by a husband. That feeling persisted throughout the Victorian era and ended...soon after the Second World War. I once met in France a widow of WWII who had to quit her native small town to be able to work: her middle class family opposed it; they thought that living from their charitable donations was more respectable than working. This makes of Quality Street one of the most important books a teen can read. In the play, a woman who has been forced to work (she became a teacher) is so ashamed when the man she loves returns from the war, that she disguises herself as a younger imaginary sister, and behaves likes the good society would like her to. But the soldier has seen a lot and does not approve. It is exciting reading, even today and it has such deep roots in history. ( )