Other diary entries focus on the Provincial Lady’s social interactions with friends and other members of the local community, often covering a wide range of random topics including literature, current affairs, mutual acquaintances and domestic challenges. The rural world and its inhabitants are beautifully captured – the central character in particular, complete with all her flippant thoughts, social anxieties and unfavourable comparisons with others. Our protagonist’s ‘mems.’ or notes to self are another joy, revealing more of her inner musings and wry observations on life. Is not a common hate one of the strongest links in human nature? Answer, most regrettably, in the affirmative. Delafield was born in Steyning, Sussex. She was the elder daughter of Count Henry Philip Ducarel de la Pasture, of Llandogo Priory, Monmouthshire, and Elizabeth Lydia Rosabelle, daughter of Edward William Bonham, who as Mrs Henry de la Pasture was also a well-known novelist. The pen name Delafield was a thin disguise suggested by her sister Yoe. After Count Henry died, her mother married Sir Hugh Clifford GCMG, who governed the colonies of the Gold Coast (1912–19), Nigeria (1919–25), Ceylon (1925–27) and the Malay States.

Get home—still chilled to the bone owing to enforced detention at Hard Court—and tell Robert what I think of Lady B. ... " The marriage was evidently a success. But younger sons do not inherit, though they are used to a certain standard of living. To maintain this standard, EM Delafield kept on writing - probably far too much. Her output included three plays, several comedy sketches, magazine pieces and very nearly one book a year; among these was a novel called Nothing is Safe (1937), drawn from watching the haphazard divorces of the interwar years and the devastating effect they had on the children involved. She also studied criminology, and wrote a very good reconstruction of a famous murder called Messalina of the Suburbs (1924). In fact, shortly afterwards, my own copy was returned from America. In an accompanying letter, the women's lib lady announced that she had abandoned Normie and the children and run off with another woman. But she added a PS: "I absolutely adored the Provincial Lady, so like me, and isn't her MCP of a husband just like Normie!" A fictional diary from the 1920s, almost entirely taking place in the Devonshire countryside, is lively, amusing and most enjoyable. It might have been boring, but most certainly isn't and although life is very different today, some of the problems encountered chime with our own.The social hierarchy is minutely described particularly in the nuances of rank which have more to do with title than money. Committee positions are determined by the rank of the member’s husband. “Sudden appearance of Our Vicar’s wife, who says apologetically that she made a mistake about the time. I beg her to take the chair. She refuses. I insist. She says No, no, positively not and takes it.”

Write grateful letter to Rose, at the same time explaining difficulty of broadening my outlook by further time spent away from home, just at present." I particularly enjoyed Books 1 and 2, which cover our Provincial Lady’s family life between the Wars - struggling to make ends meet, raise and educate two children, live the social life of a ‘lady’ in her English village, and develop her own writing career. She doesn’t always get it right and often feels ineffectual. Am asked what I think of Harriet Hume but am unable to say, as I have not read it. Have a depressed feeling that this is going to be another case of Orlando about which was perfectly able to talk most intelligently until I read it, and found myself unfortunately unable to understand any of it. I ask Robert, sentimentally, if this makes him think of our wedding. He looks surprised and says No, not particularly, why should it? As I cannot at the moment think of any particular reply to this, the question drops. Book 3, In America as a successful author, was interesting enough but didn’t have the humourous details of the earlier two.

E M Delafield

The diary is written in the first person and Georgina Sutton is quite excellent. She has a gift for bringing out the humour, of which there is much, but also makes her character very sympathetic. December 9th.—Rose staying here two days before going on to London. Says All American houses are Always Warm, which annoys Robert. He says in return that All American houses are Grossly Overheated and Entirely Airless. Impossible not to feel that this would carry more weight if Robert had ever been to America. Rose also very insistent about efficiency of American Telephone Service, and inclined to ask for glasses of cold water at breakfast time—which Robert does not approve of. Book 4, in Wartime, was as tedious to read as it was to live. This is set in the lead up to the war, when everyone was called on to volunteer but there was nothing for them to do. Everyone is asking everyone else ‘do you have some work for me’. Our Provincial Lady ended up working part time in a canteen for ambulance drivers, etc until something more suited to her talents came along. The Diary of a Provincial Lady is a charming, wry, satirical glimpse into the world of the upper-middle class in Devonshire, England in the late 1920s/early 1930s. Diary of a Provincial Lady succeeds by saying all the things you would never say out loud but often secretly think. The writer highlights the follies of provincial society through terse and acerbic commentary, all while cheerfully tearing her neighbors and acquaintances to shreds. And I have to say, it often comes across as quite funny and relatable, even today. My favorite scenes involved introductions--with all the social awkwardness of trying to remember names and claim acquaintance or disclaim the acquaintance as the case may be.

The one way in which I hope real life deviated from her novel was in the state of her finances. In the book they were horrendous; she was always taking things to be pawned, or rescuing things from the pawnbrokers at the last moment. Her perilous financial situation was exacerbated by her love of new clothes and other luxuries. Another big negative in the book was her husband, who came across as grumpy and monosyllabic. She however appeared to be wholly unperturbed by his reticence. (This seemingly had more to do with the parched expectations of women at the time, and less to do with any positive attributes he may have secretly harboured.) As you may well know by now, Simon and Karen are running another of their ‘Clubs’ this week, this one focusing on literature first published in 1930. (You can find out more about it here.) For my contribution to the event, I’ve decided to write about E. M. Delafield’s The Diary of a Provincial Lady, the first of four books included in the Penguin collected edition of the series. (The first book appeared in 1930, with further instalments following in 1932, 1934 and 1940.)

THE END

This is a charming, humorous and at times poignant novel of a largely domestic life in a bygone age. In spite of its firm footing in the late 1920s/early ‘30s, Delafield’s book still holds some relevance to the modern world, especially in terms of the emotions and dilemmas portrayed. In some respects, it may well have paved the way for later diaries capturing the lives of more contemporary women and characters, books like Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996) and Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life (2013). The heirs of Jane Austen/Rachel R. Mather. (Peter Lang, 1996) ISBN 0-8204-2624-5 (Treats E M Delafield, EF Benson and Angela Thirkell)