Ann Bridge transports the reader to a long-lost world: Peking (now Beijing) in the 1920s, during the Warlord Period. As Chinese warlords battle for supremacy, the European delegations and trade representatives in Peking live safely in their own enclave, enjoying a social whirl of parties, riding in the surrounding countryside, and racing the 'griffins', little Mongolian horses brought down from the north and trained for that purpose. We explore this world through the eyes of Amber Harrison from the Cotswolds in England, who travels out to Peking to escape an unhappy love affair. Alongside the fascinating descriptions of Peking and its surroundings (which Ann Bridge knew at first hand as she accompanied her husband there in the 1920s when he was acting as counsellor for the British Foreign Office) we follow Amber as she discovers how to make her mark in this strange European Expat society: by training and racing her own griffin horse (the 'Ginger Griffin' of the title). There is plenty of gentle humour, social commentary on both the expats and the Chinese, tension, and another love affair for Amber; and eventually the story reaches a happy conclusion.
Author of best-selling novel Peking Picnic, Ann Bridge brings us her second novel set amongst the diplomatic circle of Peking. First published in 1934, The Ginger Griffin tells the story of a young English woman who comes to Peking to live with her diplomatic uncle, on a quest to get over an unhappy love affair she soon finds herself falling into another.The Ginger Griffin combines romance and adventure during the times when expatriates and diplomats enjoyed privileged and cosseted lives in the Far East.
This is an hilarious pastiche of a young woman's diary, supposedly written during the summer of Queen Victoria's coronation. Our heroine and her best friend go up to London to enjoy the social life and see the entertainments surrounding the royal event. In the process they meet several eligible young men, come perilously close to having their reputations severely tarnished, and discover that our heroine's father (who has accompanied them) is even more of a liability than they had thought. The style (in my opinion) perfectly mimics the writing style of the period; the historical detail is excellent -- although the modern reader may have to look up a few points on google -- and the outcome of the story is absolutely what it should be in a light-hearted tale of this kind. Excellent reading for lovers of early nineteenth-century novels.
The Queen isn’t going to steal her thunder. It’s 1838, the summer of Queen Victoria’s coronation, and romance is in the air. When best friends Fanny and Emily arrive in London with Fanny’s despairing father in tow, they embrace the hustle and bustle of city life. Almost at once Fanny’s heart is stolen by dashing rogue Mr. Vavasour, despite his questionable reputation. But sensible and charming Mr. Darnley is also determined to win her over, at any cost. Will she go with her head or with her heart? Coronation Summer is a charming and brilliant adventure wrapped around a love…
I enjoy all Trollope's Barchester novels, but this one is a particular longstanding favourite. It is always a pleasure to visit Barsetshire, so thoroughly imagined and described by Trollope (and later by Thirkell); the characters are convincing, often exasperating, always sympathetic; the story is engaging, and the outcome satisfactory; and the whole is interlaced with gentle humour. Trollope insists that the value of a book should be in the narrative and the working out of the story, not just in the final resolution. 'Take the last pages if you please -- learn from them all the results of our troubled story, and the story shall have lost none of its interest, if indeed there be any interest in it to lose' (chapter 15). The joy of the story, then, should be in the reading of it, not in the resolution of the mystery. There is no rushing a Trollope novel, but in a busy, troubled world it is worth putting aside some hours to return to Barsetshire with him as guide.
Anthony Trollope was well aware that the seemingly parochial power struggles that determine the action of Barchester Towers - struggles whose comic possibilities he exploits to hilarious effect - actually went to the heart of mid-Victorian English society, and had, in other times and other guises, led to civil war and constitutional upheaval.
That awareness heightens the comedy and intensifies the drama in this magnificent novel and it transforms the story of a fight for ascendency among the clergy and dependants of a great English cathedral into something fundamental and universal. Barchester Towers is the second of Trollope's six Barchester…
The medieval crusades needed women: women’s money, prayer support, active participation and inspiration. This book surveys women’s involvement in medieval crusading between the second half of the eleventh century, when Pope Gregory VII first proposed a penitential military expedition to help the Christians of the East, and 1570, when Cyprus, the last crusader state, was captured by the Ottoman Turks. It considers women’s actions not only on crusade battlefields but also in recruiting crusaders, supporting crusades through patronage, propaganda, and prayer, and as both defenders and aggressors. It argues that (contrary to what many historians have assumed) medieval women were deeply involved in the crusades although the roles that they could play and how their contemporaries recorded their deeds were dictated by social convention and cultural expectations. Although its main focus is the women of Latin Christendom, this book also looks at the impact of the crusades and crusaders on the Jews of western Europe and the Muslims of the Middle East, and compares relations between Latin Christians and Muslims with relations between Muslims and other Christian groups.
