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The Diary Of a Provincial Lady (Virago Modern Classics)
[Paperback - 2010]
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Category: Fiction
Sub-category: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Virago Press Uk | ISBN: 9780860685227 | Pages: 562
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Behind this rather prim title lies the hilarious fictional diary of a disaster-prone lady of the 1930s, and her attempts to keep her somewhat ramshackle household from falling into chaos: there's her husband Robert, who, when he's not snoozing behind The Times, does everything with grumbling recluctance; her gleefully troublesome children; and a succession of tricky sevants who invariably seem to gain the upper hand. And if her domestic trials are not enough, she must keep up appearances. Particularly with the maddeningly patronising Lady Boxe, whom our Provincial Lady eternally (and unsuccessfully) tries to compete with.

E. M. Delafield (1890-1943) was born in Sussex. Her mother was also a well-known novelist, writing as Mrs Henry de la Pasture, and Delafield chose her pen-name based on a suggestion by her sister Yoé. A debutante in 1909, Delafield was accepted as a postulant by a French religious order in 1911 but decided against joining, a topic she explores in her novel Consequences (1919).

Delafield worked as a nurse in a Voluntary Aid Detachment following the outbreak of the First World War, and her first novel Zella Sees Herself was written during this time and published in 1917. Diary of a Provincial Lady, her most successful novel, inspired several sequels and is a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of Delafield herself, written after a request by the editor of Time and Tide for some light middles in serial form.

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