.
..
With appreciation, remembrance and gratefulness…
.
.
.
Miss Read (Dora Saint) 1913-2012
...
My name is Lesley and I love to create beauty and peace...in my home, online rooms and the pages I design for my shop. I live in the countryside of Virginia with my husband, one white dog, two hens and all of the wild things in field and forest and sky.
Bonnie April 17, 2012 at 11:12 pm
What a long life she had.
I just ordered two of her autobiographies. Love the close-up of the two ladies on the cover. Reminds me of a dear friend of my mother’s holding her hand in that friendship a month before my mom died. It is etched in my mind.
Bonnie April 17, 2012 at 11:12 pm
Do you know of any recent publications by Miss Read?
Bonnie April 17, 2012 at 11:25 pm
I found this from The Guardian:
( which may explain why she didn’t write towards the end of her long life)
Although nearly blind for the last years of her life, Dora was always fully alert to the weather. The pace of life might have changed in her fictional villages as the years passed, but the joy of a hint of warmth early in the year, as in Winter in Thrush Green (1961), never alters: “It was one of those clear, mild days which come occasionally in mid-winter and lift the spirits with their hint of coming springtime. Catkins were already fluttering on the nut hedge behind Albert’s house and the sky was a pale translucent blue, as tender as a thrush’s egg-shell.”
Bonnie April 17, 2012 at 11:28 pm
plus probably 1996 was her last publication:
She went on to publish more than 30 novels set in Fairacre or Thrush Green, as well as several children’s books and two memoirs. She kept writing her cozy fiction — and Miss Read kept teaching in Fairacre — until “A Peaceful Retirement” brought an end to the franchise in 1996.
Lesley Austin April 17, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Thank you for answering your own questions, dear Bonnie…I wanted to, but am too weary tonight!
melissa April 18, 2012 at 3:08 am
Love her, and Bonnie on her FB page informed me of Miss Read’s death as well. A couple of summers ago, I read all of her books from the library in order. What a good idea that was! Very soothing.
Hope you’ll rest well, tonight, Lesley. Take care.
the wild magnolia April 19, 2012 at 2:10 am
she is followed by a sweet remembrance.
kkkkaty April 21, 2012 at 3:26 am
How could I not know her? Now that I am aware, I will read her books..thank you.
Jake Gariepy May 24, 2012 at 9:05 pm
I love the pictures you took for this post. They are so perfectly evocative of Miss Read’s books. Glad I discovered your blog! It is lovely! I’ll be reading more.
I, also, posted a remembrance of Miss Read on my own blog, Dapper and Dreamy. If you’d like to see it, go to http://www.dapperdreamy.blogspot.com.
Thank you!