E. M. Delafield wrote comic and domestic fiction about class, marriage, money and the absurd pressures of respectable middle-class life. Diary of a Provincial Lady follows an unnamed woman managing children, servants, bills, neighbours and social obligations in a deliberately understated diary voice that turns small domestic frustrations into comedy. Later Provincial Lady books take the same narrator to London, America and wartime life. Consequences is much darker, following a young woman constrained by family expectations and limited choices, while The Way Things Are returns to marriage and domestic dissatisfaction. Delafield's prose is dry, observant and economical, with humour built from what the narrator chooses not to say directly. Her work fits interwar women's fiction, domestic satire and comic diary novels, especially for readers of Barbara Pym and Stella Gibbons. Read more Less
No products in the cart.