Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Favorite TV Episode Blogathon: The Waltons, “The Book”

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After watching several seasons of a TV show and seeing your favorite episodes several times, you begin to pinpoint certain episodes that stand out because of the quality of the writing. While some are just adequate, there are some episodes where everything “clicks”—every line of dialogue counts, all the elements of the story fit smoothly together. The Waltons Season 3 episode “The Book” is one of those. It neatly balances the show’s ongoing theme of John-Boy Walton’s literary ambitions and his recurring adventures at college with his family relationships and the background of everyday occurrences at the Walton home.

It’s probably the best episode built around John-Boy’s college experiences. Much could be written about the theme of John-Boy and college, an aspect of the show I’ve always found mildly irritating. John-Boy goes about devouring and quoting from and enthusing about books and poetry by great authors from all walks of life and varying degrees of formal education, yet he still clings religiously to the belief that if he doesn’t make it through college, he can never be a writer himself. Though this is stated explicitly often enough, the show itself ironically and perhaps unintentionally tells another story. John-Boy clearly draws his creative life from Walton’s Mountain, from his home and family, from the beauty of nature, and from his observance of human nature in neighbors and friends and interesting strangers he meets. He’s happiest when up in his room or wandering the woods scribbling away with pencil and pad. College, on the other hand, is mainly a place for him to struggle with chemistry and geometry, feel inferior beside more well-off classmates, and get into difficulties over lecture tickets, codes of etiquette and dance dates. “The Book” is really one of the only times we see him engaged in any meaningful literary activity at college. [Read more…]

Agatha Christie Blogathon: The Secret of Blandings…er, Chimneys

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The Secret of Chimneys (1925) and The Seven Dials Mystery (1929) are not your typical Agatha Christie novels. Published early in her career, they’re probably best described as light-hearted spy thrillers—indeed they can almost be read as good-natured spoofs of the genre. Though both feature a murder or murders, their plots revolve much more around international intrigue and rely a good deal on fortuitous coincidences, and their chief joy is the witty banter between the characters.

Chimneys, one of the “stately homes of England,” is fairly hopping with mysterious guests, secretive detectives, foreign Counts with unpronounceable names, sinister servants, secret passages, pompous politicians, Bright Young Things who relish every bit of the excitement, and naturally a stately butler who manages to remain unfazed by it all. In the midst of the maelstrom is the owner of Chimneys, the hapless Lord Caterham, a vague and mild-mannered peer who devoutly wishes that all of these top-secret diplomatic conferences and deaths by foul play didn’t have to occur in his home. His daughter Lady Eileen Brent (known for some unfathomable reason as Bundle) is far more ready to get in on the action—a supporting character in The Secret of Chimneys, she’s promoted to heroine in The Seven Dials Mystery.

The first book finds footloose adventurer Anthony Cade agreeing to deliver the manuscript of a defunct diplomat’s memoirs to a London publisher—a job that takes on a much more lively aspect when it becomes clear that several different parties are out to get hold of the manuscript by hook or crook. Anthony winds up at Chimneys, where an important conference on the future of the (fictional) revolution-prone Balkan country of Herzoslovakia is disrupted by a murder. Nobody at Chimneys is quite what they seem, and everyone seems out to nab the manuscript or a famous missing jewel or both; and the process of straightening it all out is highly entertaining.

In The Seven Dials Mystery, the seemingly accidental death of a guest at Chimneys (“I don’t like anyone who comes and dies in my house on purpose to annoy me,” Lord Caterham complains) leads Bundle Brent into the investigation of what seems to be a secret society known as the Seven Dials, who are out to steal a valuable invention formula. A mostly new cast of characters are joined by a few old friends from the first book, including the pompous Cabinet Minister George Lomax and his young assistant, the not overly bright but eminently likeable Bill Eversleigh. The character of Superintendent Battle, who appears in both books, would later feature in three more Christie novels, including one of the best Poirot books, Cards on the Table.

I read both of these books for the first time years ago, and have always had a soft spot for them despite their being much lighter fare than Christie’s top whodunits. But just recently, something else began to dawn on me about the Chimneys books.

I have a feeling that the establishment of Chimneys may be a nod to Blandings Castle.

If you know P.G. Wodehouse, you probably know Blandings Castle—that stately pile where guests are also hardly ever what they claim to be, and quite often spend the book vying with each other in attempts to pinch something, whether it be a diamond necklace or an Egyptian scarab—always with Lord Emsworth’s secretary, the Efficient Rupert Baxter, highly suspicious and hot on their trail. Where prowlers run rampant in the halls at midnight, and the lord of the manor usually has absolutely no idea what is going on.  The more I look at it, the more I can’t help believing that Christie’s Chimneys is a cheeky hat-tip to Blandings. First you have the proprietor: the similarity between mild, vague Lord Caterham and the even vaguer Lord Emsworth, both of whom frequently have trouble following a conversation, cannot be denied. Take this conversation from Wodehouse’s Leave it to Psmith (1923):

“He threw a flower-pot at me,” said Baxter, and vanished moodily.

Lord Emsworth stared at the open window, then turned to Eve for enlightenment.

“Why did Baxter throw a flower-pot at McTodd?” he said. “And,” he went on, ventilating an even deeper question, “where the deuce did he get a flower-pot? There are no flower-pots in the library.”

Eve, on her side, was also seeking information.

“Did you say his name was McTodd, Lord Emsworth?”

“No, no. Baxter. That was Baxter, my secretary.”

“No, I mean the one who met me at the station.”

“Baxter did not meet you at the station. The man who met you at the station,” said Lord Emsworth, speaking slowly, for women are so apt to get things muddled, “was McTodd. He’s staying here…And,” said Lord Emsworth with not a little heat, “I strongly object to Baxter throwing flower-pots at him. I won’t have Baxter throwing flower-pots at my guests,” he said firmly; for Lord Emsworth, though occasionally a little vague, was keenly alive to the ancient traditions of his family regarding hospitality.

And, in one of the best scenes from The Seven Dials Mystery, a conversation with Lord Caterham:

“I haven’t been to London,” said Bundle. “I ran over a man.”

“What?”

“Only I didn’t really. He was shot.”

“How could he have been?”

“I don’t know how he could have been, but he was.”

“But why did you shoot him?”

“I didn’t shoot him.”

“You shouldn’t shoot people,” said Lord Caterham in a tone of mild remonstrance. “You shouldn’t really. I daresay some of them richly deserve it—but all the same it will lead to trouble.”

“I tell you I didn’t shoot him.”

“Well, who did?”

“Nobody knows,” said Bundle.

“Nonsense,” said Lord Caterham. “A man can’t be shot and run over without anyone having done it.”

“He wasn’t run over,” said Bundle.

“I thought you said he was.”

“I said I thought I had.”

“A tyre burst, I suppose,” said Lord Caterham. “That does sound like a shot. It says so in detective stories.”

Both establishments, of course, have their stately and unflappable butler. Even more telling, both have a despotic Scottish head gardener who strikes terror into the hearts of employers—at Blandings a McAllister, at Chimneys a McDonald. Blandings is located near the town of Market Blandings, and Chimneys near Market Basing (a town name Christie would re-use in many books).

But the crowning touch is that in The Seven Dials Mystery, Christie gives Sir Oswald Coote, temporary tenant of Chimneys, a secretary called Rupert Bateman—a serious-minded young man who can provide eminently practical advice in any situation. If Rupert Bateman isn’t based off Rupert Baxter, I’ll eat my hat. He’s even referred to outright as “the efficient Mr. Rupert Bateman,” in Chapter 20. And the scene in Chapter 27, with Bateman dogging the steps of Jimmy Thesiger during a midnight country-house prowl and insisting on verifying his story of why he’s creeping about in the middle of the night, is Efficient Baxter to the very life.

I think it’s worth noting that decades later, Christie would dedicate her 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party “To P. G. Wodehouse—whose books and stories have brightened my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books.”

This post is an entry for the Agatha Christie Blogathon, hosted by Christina Wehner and Little Bits of Classics. Don’t forget to check out all the other posts in the blogathon!

Beyond the Cover Blogathon: Kidnapped (1960)

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These days, one frequently sees popular historical novels based on the life of some real historical figure, or featuring real people from history as characters. One might say that Robert Louis Stevenson was ahead of the curve in this area. The plot of his 1886 novel Kidnapped is largely built around the real-life unsolved “Appin murder” of 1752, and a number of historical personages appear in its pages—particularly the enigmatic Alan Breck Stewart, who in Stevenson’s hands became one of literature’s most memorable characters. In the book’s dedication, Stevenson charmingly acknowledges his use of poetic license, such as in moving the year of the murder to 1751 and “the Torran rocks [having] crept so near to Earraid,” and goes on to add his opinion that his fictional imagining of the solution to the murder case is likely enough to be a correct one.

Walt Disney’s 1960 adaptation of Kidnapped was one of a string of live-action Disney movies set and filmed in Great Britain throughout the 1950s and ’60s—Disney, like other film studios, began filming in Britain in order to make use of profits from earlier films which post-WWII English treasury regulations prohibited them from taking out of the country. Kidnapped was written and directed, appropriately enough, by English director Robert Stevenson—apparently no relation to the novelist.

To be honest, when I first saw the movie years ago I didn’t think too highly of it. It seemed to rush too quickly through the plot; James MacArthur seemed too American for the role of David Balfour; it just didn’t seem very interesting. But when I saw it again within the last year, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it this time. Both the production values and the script seemed better than I remembered. Perhaps reconizing the slew of  fine British character actors that populated the cast, whom I’d since seen in other movies—Bernard Lee, John Laurie, Finlay Currie, Duncan Macrae, Miles Malleson—increased my appreciation a bit; perhaps having a little distance from the original novel, which I haven’t read in some years, allowed me to enjoy the movie more for itself and not merely as an adaptation. Whatever the reason, I think I would now count Kidnapped among my favorite live-action Disney movies.

At the outset of the story, young David Balfour (James MacArthur) leaves home following his father’s death to look for the uncle whose existence he has just been made aware of, supposed to be a man of property. To his dismay, Ebenezer Balfour (John Laurie) turns out to be a greedy eccentric living a miserly existence to rival even another literary Ebenezer in the ruins of his manor house. When David begins asking too many questions about his father and the family estate, Ebenezer manages to have him decoyed on board the ship of an unscrupulous business partner, Captain Hoseason (Bernard Lee) and shipped out to sea, bound for indentured servitude in the Carolinas.


But a collision at sea brings aboard another unusual passenger, exiled Jacobite Alan Breck Stewart (Peter Finch), and when David warns Alan that Hoseason and his crew are plotting to rob and murder him, the two become unlikely allies. Separated after a shipwreck, their paths cross again on the scene of the Appin murder, and with Alan the chief suspect, the pair are forced to flee for their lives across the Highlands. Their journey is marked by pursuit from soldiers, occasional wrangles with each other, and contentious encounters with highland chieftains Cluny MacPherson (Finlay Currie) and Robin MacGregor (Peter O’Toole, in his film debut), and at its end, if they reach the Lowlands in safety, will be the challenge of confronting Uncle Ebenezer and finding out the truth about David’s inheritance.


Like most feature-film-length adaptations of novels, Kidnapped basically hits the high points of the story, but hits them briskly, and chooses some of the best parts to spend the most time on—David’s introduction to Uncle Ebenezer and the crumbling House of Shaws, the battle on board Hoseason’s ship, David and Alan’s flight from the scene of the murder. All the acting is good, but Peter Finch’s vigorous performance as Alan Breck Stewart brings the biggest jolt of energy to all the scenes he appears in, much as the character of Alan does in the book—and John Laurie is hilariously scene-stealing as the miserly Ebenezer Balfour. (The scene where Alan and Ebenezer meet is one of the best in the movie; I think it even outdoes the same scene in the novel.)

It’s a colorful and visually attractive film too, with a nice historical flavor and some stunning Scottish location shooting. I suspect part of the reason that the scenes and characters largely match the way I always imagined them is because the film obviously takes some cues from N.C. Wyeth’s classic illustrations for the 1913 Scribner edition, the one I grew up with. It’s the only adaptation of Kidnapped I’ve seen (according to IMDB, there have been at least thirteen of them), but though there may be others that incorporate more of the book’s plot, I have a hard time picturing another one capturing the characters and the spirit of the story as well as this one does.

This is my entry to the Beyond the Cover Blogathon hosted by Now Voyaging and Speakeasy. Visit the host blogs throughout the next few days to check out all the other participants’ posts on movies adapted from books!