 First edition | |
| Author | Martin Boyd |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Leslie Wood |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Cresset Press, London |
Publication date | 1949 |
| Media type | Print hardback & paperback |
| Pages | 367 pp |
| Preceded by | Lucinda Brayford |
| Followed by | The Cardboard Crown |
Such Pleasure (1949) is a novel by the Australian writer Martin Boyd. [1]
The novel follows the life of Bridget Malwyn, the illegitimate daughter of an Irish peer and an English governess. Malwyn transforms over the course of the novel from being young and romantic through to an old disillusioned, objectionable old woman who lives in the past.
Gladys Hain in The Argus admired the choices made by the author. "Had Martin Boyd been so minded, he might have made of this story a bitter satire, attacking capitalistic society as one which gives to money the power to mould character irretrievably. He has chosen rather to make of his book a wandering, almost meandering sketch of a woman who never recovered from the taste of splendour she got when she lived with her devoted and slightly idiotic parent, an Irish peer, in his castle on the shores of a beautiful lake...Also, had Mr Boyd chosen to dig a little deeper and lay bare the emotions behind the clash between Bridget and her children, he would have written a very powerful novel. Instead, he has chosen, and perhaps wisely, to make his book a comedy of manners, and, as such, it is a highly enjoyable story." [2]
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about youthful hubris and romantic misunderstandings. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, with its title page listing a publication date of 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners, and depicts issues of marriage, sex, age, and social status.
Diana Dors was an English film and television actress and singer.
Bridget Jones is a fictional character created by British writer Helen Fielding. Jones first appeared in Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary column in The Independent in 1995, which did not carry any byline. Thus, it seemed to be an actual personal diary chronicling the life of Jones as a thirtysomething single woman in London as she tries to make sense of life, love, and relationships with the help of a surrogate "urban family" of friends in the 1990s. The column was, in fact, a lampoon of women's obsession with love, marriage and romance as well as women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan and wider social trends in Britain at the time. Fielding published the novelisation of the column in 1996, followed by a sequel in 1999 called The Edge of Reason.
Betty Evelyn Box, was a prolific British film producer, usually credited as Betty E. Box.
Peggy Cummins was an Irish actress, born in Wales, who is best known for her performance in Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy (1950), playing a trigger-happyfemme fatale, who robs banks with her lover. In 2020, she was listed at number 16 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
The Murder at the Vicarage is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1930 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
Murder is Easy is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 5 June 1939 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in September of the same year under the title of Easy to Kill. Christie's recurring character, Superintendent Battle, has a cameo appearance at the end, but plays no part in either the solution of the mystery or the apprehension of the criminal. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
A Pocket Full of Rye is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 9 November 1953, and in the US by Dodd, Mead & Co. the following year. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6) and the US edition at $2.75. The book features her detective Miss Marple.
Martin à Beckett Boyd was an Australian writer born into the à Beckett–Boyd family, a family synonymous with the establishment, the judiciary, publishing and literature, and the visual arts since the early 19th century in Australia.
Bridget "Bee" Vreeland is a main character in the 2001 novel The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She is portrayed by Blake Lively in the 2005 film adaptation of the first book, and the 2008 sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the sexual assault of 12 year old American girl Dolores Haze by a middle-aged French literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. Humbert grooms and rapes Dolores after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is Humbert’s private nickname for Dolores. The novel was originally written in English and first published in Paris in 1955 by Olympia Press. Later it was translated into Russian by Nabokov himself and published in New York City in 1967 by Phaedra Publishers.
Woman Hater is a 1948 British romantic comedy film directed by Terence Young and starring Stewart Granger, Edwige Feuillère and Ronald Squire. The screenplay concerns Lord Datchett, who, as a consequence of a bet with his friends, invites a French film star to stay at his house but pretends to be one of his employees while he tries to romance her with the help of his butler. When she discovers his subterfuge, she decides to turn the tables on him.
Bridget O'Connor was a BAFTA-winning author, playwright and screenwriter.
The Poor Clare is a short story by English Victorian writer Elizabeth Gaskell. First serialised in three installments in 1856 Charles Dickens' popular magazine Household Words, The Poor Clare is a gothic ghost story about a young woman unwittingly cursed by her own grandmother.
A Difficult Young Man (1955) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It is the second in the author's "Langton Tetralogy" and it won the ALS Gold Medal in 1957.
Prelude to Waking : A Novel in the First Person and Parentheses (1950) is a novel by Australian writer Miles Franklin, which was originally published under the author's pseudonym "Brent of Bin Bin".
The Cardboard Crown (1952) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It is the first in the author's "Langton Tetralogy".
Night of the Party (1938) is a novel by Australian author Martin Boyd.
Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay is a novel by William Boyd, published by Bloomsbury in 2015. A fictional autobiography supposedly written by a woman, Amory Clay, born in 1908, it includes extracts from her diary, written on a Hebridean island in 1977, with flashbacks from her career as a photographer in London, Scotland, France, Germany, the United States, Mexico and Vietnam. The book also includes more than 70 photographs, collected by Boyd, most of which are attributed to her.
The Changeling Sea is a fantasy novel for juvenile readers by Patricia A. McKillip. It was first published in hardcover by Atheneum/Macmillan in October 1988, with a paperback edition issued by Del Rey/Ballantine in December 1989. It was subsequently reissued in paperback and ebook by Firebird/Penguin in April 2003. The first British edition was published in hardcover by Oxford University Press in September 1991, with an ebook edition following from Gateway/Orion in December 2015.