Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Favorite Film & TV Homes Blogathon: The Browns’ cottage in “National Velvet” (1944)

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“I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself.” ~ Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

When I found out about this fun blogathon, it was easy to pick what to write about. I’m sure there’s been more than one movie house that’s made me say, “Aw, gee, I wish I could live there,” (if you include more modern film, Barton Cottage from Sense and Sensibility ’95 may be my all-time favorite movie dwelling) but one of the first that always springs to mind is the Brown family’s cottage in National Velvet (1944). Tucked away in a corner of a little English village, it’s cozy, cheerful, bright, and homelike. It looks like you could really step into it and live there. As I took the screenshots for this post, I found myself discovering all sorts of delightful little details I’d never noticed about it before, even though I’ve seen the movie dozens of times.

Lots of screencaps coming here, so make yourselves comfortable, perhaps with a cup of tea (I had one beside me while writing this, in fact). You can click on any picture to enlarge it and see the details better.

When you really look at it, the layout of the cottage is extremely simple. The downstairs consists of the one main room, encompassing both dining-room and living-room, a charming little winding staircase leading up to the second floor, and a step down into the kitchen. And yet it’s a perfectly comfortable fit for a family of six. I love the simple, countryish décor—the light-colored walls, wide white woodwork, the ceiling beams and those wonderful many-paned windows.

Watch the scenes in the parlor and you pick up all sorts of homey little touches—the plaid afghan on a chair, the mismatched but coordinating pillows scattered about, the family photos tucked in corners, socks drying by the fire, the lace doilies and sewing-basket on a table. I love how in the final scene (below left), the windowsill and window-seat are carelessly piled with books and newspapers—it’s a house that really looks lived-in. The dining-room chairs don’t all match, though they’re all the same finish. [Read more…]

The Books That Shaped My Childhood

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I saw a post like this on Mirriam Neal’s blog the other day, and it got me thinking fondly about the books I read and enjoyed most in early childhood. When I think about it, it’s surprisingly easy to see just how much the books that made the most impression on me in childhood shaped my tastes, interests, and even my future writing. So without further ado, here’s some of the books that stand out in my memory as being most influential during childhood. (I decided to start after the age of picture-books, as that would make this list far too long—material for another post, right?)

The original Winnie-the-Pooh books

When I was a toddler, my mom used to sit in a lawn chair next to my inflatable kiddie pool on the lawn of our apartment building and read A.A. Milne’s original Pooh books aloud to me while I played in the water: Winnie-the-Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, and some of the poems from the other two. (I suppose you could trace my taste for dry British humor back this far.) The adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh and some bees, the Expotition, the search for Small, Piglet’s encounter with the Heffalump, Owl’s lost doorknocker, and so on, are all among the dearest of literary memories. Mom used to get laughing just as hard as I did—to this day, lines from the poem that Pooh composed while trapped under the basket-chair can set us both off again.

Marguerite Henry’s horse books

I read pretty much everything Marguerite Henry ever wrote multiple times—from Album of Horses and Misty of Chincoteague through Justin Morgan Had a Horse and King of the Wind, and on to the more dramatic and grown-up Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West and San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion (and everything that came in between). The main reason I loved them was that I was horse-crazy, but looking back, I realize that these books were also just captivating stories and darn good historical fiction (many of them based on true stories to boot). [Read more…]

Friday’s Forgotten Books: The Rhodes Reader

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I’d read and enjoyed a few of Eugene Manlove Rhodes’ books before, but this collection really increased my appreciation for him as a writer and a chronicler of the West. The stories and essays in The Rhodes Reader showcase all the best hallmarks of Rhodes’ writing: his command of the English language pure and simple, his gift for delightful and often hilarious dialogue and wordplay (akin to my old favorite O. Henry), and his thorough personal knowledge of the New Mexico landscape and of cowboy and ranch life. I almost feel like I could head for New Mexico with this book under my arm and be able to find my way around.

Of the short stories, “Loved I Not Honor More,” “The Numismatist,” “A Number of Things,” and “The Bird in the Bush,” are classic Rhodes, built around everyday but distinctly Western incidents and sparkling with wry comedy. “The Long Shift” and “The Fool’s Heart,” on the other hand, are straight drama, the latter a suspenseful will-they-get-away-with-it tale of murder and frame-up that would have worked well as an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. “The Trouble Man,” which falls somewhere between these in mood with a blend of suspense and wit, features Jeff Bransford, John Wesley Pringle (who also stars in “A Number of Things”), and other familiar Rainbow Range characters that appear in many of Rhodes’ novels and stories. So many of his stories, in fact, feature recurring characters and take place in the same locations that it’s basically like a story universe in which he set a lot of short fiction as well as full-length novels (both fictional characters and historical figures, whether lightly disguised or appearing under their own names—Pat Garrett, for example, appears in this volume, as he did in Rhodes’ famous Paso Por Aqi; and the enigmatic gambler character Monte from that story makes a cameo here in “Cheerful Land”).

“The Enchanted Valley” and “Cheerful Land” are more vignettes than stories, with the focus strongly on New Mexican life and landscape. “No Mean City” is a bit unusual, a longer story based on a rumored incident of planned sabotage that never materialized during World War I; but even here, it’s the extensive backstory involving New Mexican history that makes it interesting. (And here again a key character from another story reappears, as the protagonist this time.)

What surprised me was how much I enjoyed the three nonfiction essays, dealing with New Mexico’s quest for statehood, the writing of Western fiction, and defense of Pat Garrett against critics partial to Billy the Kid, respectively. Rhodes’ literate, witty writing style and no-nonsense way of expressing his opinions make even politics interesting; plus I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he has to say about Western fiction and American’s neglect of their own history in “The West That Was.”

In short, this volume leaves Eugene Rhodes high on my list of favorite Western writers, both for writing skill and the wonderfully authentic feel of the settings and incidents. If you’re an enthusiast for Western fiction, and particularly if you enjoy a Southwestern setting, you won’t want to miss his work.

The Rhodes Reader, first published in 1957, is now out of print; you can find used copies on Abebooks, Amazon, et cetera. This is an entry for Friday’s Forgotten Books, a weekly blog event hosted by Patti Abbott.