Good questions about midddle-brow novels. I wonder if the term sometimes puts off readers, because they think the book might be flimsy or shallow. But of course many of the novels designated middle-brow are actually brilliant, clever, funny works - especially those by Elizabeth von Arnim and Sylvia Townsend Warner. Thanks so much for your reading programme for 2025 - it looks terrific. All those books are well worth studying.
Thanks so much for mentioning my edition of Mrs Dalloway, to be published by Oxford World’s Classics in May this year for the centenary of its first publication. We intend to launch the book in Cambridge in October. Details to follow on the Literature Cambridge website.
Thank you Trudi and I agree – the term is still used in a dismissive way, I feel, but it's encouraging that there's been so much scholarly work on the so-called middlebrow in fiction and other art forms. It's very much associated with works by women, and presumed to be intended for a female readership. Looking forward to the launch of your edition of Mrs Dalloway!
I was going to ask whether you'd read Woolf's tongue in cheek diatribe about middlebrows ('If any human being, man, woman, dog, cat or half-crushed worm dares call me "middlebrow" I will take my pen and stab him, dead.' Haha.) But of course you had!
Thank you very much for mentioning our group read of To the Lighthouse. I suppose if I'd planned more carefully, we would be doing Mrs Dalloway during the hundred year anniversary! Oh well. Lovely post, Ann! You've put a smile on my dial.
Thank you Tash, I do love that quote from Woolf! She didn't take herself too seriously and loved a laugh (her nephew Quentin Bell didn't really appreciate her humour, though his brother Julian did). I think it's great that you're doing To the Lighthouse, and will enjoy dipping in.
Here in the U.S., the WWII-era novel Forever Amber (1944) was at first published as a serious historical novel (almost 1,000 pages!) set in the Restoration Era of Charles II of England. It was a bit bawdy and quite controversial. The publisher had to go to a lengthy trial to defend it against charges of obscenity. Despite attempts to ban and censor it, it was a huge bestseller, though gradually demoted to middlebrow. It fell out of print, was republished in 2000, and regained a small audience, but so few people today have heard of Kathleen Winsor.
That's so interesting, Nava, thank you. I see that Elaine Showalter is a fan and I like her description of how Forever Amber was received in the UK: 'The novel came out in England in 1945. While English women were weeping over Celia Johnson's stoic portrayal of sexual renunciation in Brief Encounter they were also bonding over the bawdy, upwardly-mobile Amber St Clare.' Kathleen Winsor did a good job raising morale, it seems!
Wow, thank you so much ... I'm working on a book project into which Forever Amber figures and this Guardian article will be so useful. I should also mention that I'm drowning in notes on Peyton Place by Grace Metalious — a novel that was hugely scandalous when it came out, considered middlebrow at best and trash at worst. Of late it has been reconsidered as an unwitting feminist classic.
Oh my goodness, this has woken up a distant, well buried, very early memory mash up from my early childhood of the first moon landing, an assassination (both terrified me!) and my mum being absolutely transfixed, watching Peyton Place on TV (I’m in the UK and from the memory bundle I’m guessing it must have been the late 60’s?). Mia Farrow was in it I think…Your study of it sounds so interesting.
Congratulations on 5,000 subscribers! What a lovely landmark.
Am thinking about the middlebrow question. I've never really liked that distinction.
The idea of three tiers does actally work for me, though, just with different meanings and values attached. That is, I'd say that I divide what I read into serious fiction, which is explicitly attempting to do something deep and requires my full attention; light fiction, which is amusing without much subtlety of language or thought; and then a huge, wonderful middle that is made up of books written by serious people who enjoy both language and thinking and have something interesting to say primarily through story, often a highly entertaining story. A lot of what I most enjoy is probably actually serious literature masquerading, sucessfully, as the third category.
Thank you Maria! I do like your 'three-tier' approach as a reader, and I'm hoping you'll write something about 'serious literature masquerading, sucessfully, as the third category'. It seems foolish to try to pin down and label a particular book, but I guess that's what prizes like the Booker do, singling novels out as more ambitious in their aims.
Have been thinking about that category — the first masquerading as the third. I think that I would put all of Jane Austen, much of Mark Twain, much of Dickens, most of Shakespeare’s plays (in his time), in that category, just to think in terms of writers whose work is canonical today . Does that ring true —?
I would love to hear more! My sense is that Mark Twain is much less read on this side of the Atlantic, but that might have changed since Percival Everett's James. And as you say, perception of what counts as serious literature shifts over time, and that's a good thing... allowing less familiar voices from the same era to be heard.
This has kept me thinking, and also about how much might be a matter of taste, and what one finds easy to read. I have Austen, Twain, etc in the “seriously-intended literature masquerading as the vast middle” simply because I find them easy and entertaining to read. I don't have that feeling for Woolf or Hardy (the novels) or a lot of D.H. Lawrence, so I put them into the “explicitly intending to be serious literature” category. I don't know if that's really fair…
Fascinating to hear that Twain isn't much read in the UK! I adored him as a kid — not really “Tom Sawyer” or “Huckleberry Finn” — I never reread those — but his tall tales and memoirs of traveling to Europe and the Diaries of Adam and Eve (all laugh-out-loud funny). And especially his “The Prince and The Pauper,” which is to his work as “A Christmas Carol” is to Dickens's. He also did “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,” which, in de-romanticizing the Round Table stories, had a big impact on me, though I found the book itself not as well written as the others, and also sort of resented having the romance be taken away! Twain also did, under a different pseudonym (“Twain” itself is a pseudonym) an adoring historical novel on Joan of Arc. Funny, I haven't read him since I was a kid, but this is bringing it all back…
There is a marvelous story of a young Kipling going to pay homage to Twain in Connecticut. Twain is a bit bewildered, but years later figures out who that young guy must have been. Or something like that. Will try to find it. (Edited to add: Twain didn't have a lot of time for Kipling then, without having read him or had any idea who he was, as I recall, and was later put off by all the things that put us off Kipling today. But my memory is quite vague.)
This is really fascinating ….I spent three or four years reading only Contemporary Women’s Fiction and Women’s Romance after completing my Masters, partly for fun but also to learn how the authors approach their writing. Both genres are still so quickly dismissed (written by women for women!!! 😤) despite being so often skilfully written, and dealing with some big and serious issues. I’d put many of them in your middle category, but I think they’re often collectively placed in ‘light fiction’ While so much serious fiction I find lacking in depth, and sometimes skill.
Thank you for your insightful comment, Jaimie, and like you my blood boils when novels by women writers are assumed to be intended only for women readers. Also it's still the case that fiction by male writers is given more attention by male critics and academics. Though perhaps things are better now than they were, the TLS took steps to make sure more women writers were reviewed and taken seriously.
Replying to you both here: I loved, loved the novel Less, by Andrew Sean Greer, which I think of as a top feel-good novel because all of the characters are basically well-meaning towards each other. I have given it to people who needed to read something cheering. I was still a little startled when it won the Pulitzer Prize: not because I didn't think it deserved it, but because other books focused primarily on relationships generally don't get considered in that category. It made me wonder whether the world of Pulitzer prizes simply wasn't aware of an entire field of literature written largely by women and marketed as commercial fiction.
Yes! I was thinking largely of dismissed women writers when I described that middle category. (And what a neat project you did.). I read a fair amount of what is now called “feel-good” fiction, which is usually marketed as fluff, and am interested by how often the authors have really serious ideas about the world that they want to convey to their readers (and succeed at conveying).
I always think of Penelope Lively as typical of a writer considered middlebrow and therefore underrated - being female seems to have had a lot to do with the label. Also Shirley Hazzard who I came across belatedly and I think is as good as Penelope Fitzgerald (almost) and with the same incredible way of frequently writing a mind-blowing sentence. I'm just reading a biography Elizabeth Jane Howard who again is put in the middlebrow bracket. My goodness, she led a racier life than I ever knew was possible in her (and my parents) generation! Thank you for the reading recommendations.
Absolutely, Vicky, the female aspect is definitely one we'll be discussing. Thanks for mentioning those authors, I will be adding them to my reading list too!
The classifications Highbrow/Middlebrow/Lowbrow say more about the reader than the book. Literally. They feel to be a product of class and snobbery. I wonder if these terms are more common in the UK than elsewhere, America for example. The football equivalent of lowbrow fiction is ‘route 1’, a dismissive description of play that dispenses with passing, opting instead to kick the ball directly toward goal and hope for the best. My publisher wasn’t sure if my novel should be categorised as literary (middlebrow) or commercial (lowbrow) fiction. There was never any doubt in my mind, it’s unashamedly lowbrow black comedy. Whether it could call itself commercial is questionable, given my publisher went bust shortly after publishing it and it only sold in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Does that make me a lowbrow author of ethereal fiction?
Absolutely agree, Simon. Such oversimplified classifications of literature in the early 20th century were very much based on snobbishness and social anxiety… and I’m sure that continues.
The number of comments I’ve made reflect how many times I’ve come back to this essay Ann, and each time I find something that takes me on a wonderful tangent. As much as I love late Georgian and Victorian literature, the era from around 1910 onwards really fascinates me. Perhaps because I had women from these era’s in my life during my early childhood and teens, and as an adult these books give me insight into so much more about what may have been their internal worlds, and eternal experiences that as a child I would have been completely unaware of.
Last night I went down a Monica Dickens rabbit hole. I remember borrowing her books about her career as a nurse from the local Library (they had pink covers I think) and absolutely loving them. I realise now she wrote so many more books!
Can I also put in a word for Flora Thompson whose ‘Lark Rise’ books were all published within this time frame I think…
Thank you for taking me on such inspiring and engrossing adventures, and congratulations on 5000 subscribers…I’m sure that number is going to grow and grow!
Thank you for your lovely & thoughtful comments Jaimie, I really appreciate them. Like you, I studied mostly 19th-century literature and 20th-century classics for many years, and it was only more recently that I discovered there was a treasure trove of fiction by women that I'd missed or underestimated. Like you, I devoured Monica Dickens's books from the library and am surprised I didn't become a nurse as a result. But I also loved books intended (I suspect) for boys, such as by Wilbur Smith, and it never occurred to me to wonder why those adventurous heroes were always male! Nowadays Lark Rise is more my cup of tea, so thanks for reminding me of that series.
I didn't know about Punch magazine having coined the term middlebrow but given the definition they came up with, I shouldn't be surprised : ) I didn't know Von Armin was perceived as a middlebrow author in her time, so I wonder who of the writers publishing commercial fiction today (the literary middlebrow of our times) will be still read in 20 or 30 years' time and resist the test of time like Von Armin has.
That's a great point, Cristina, would you make any predictions of who might still be read in 2050? I like your idea that commercial fiction = middlebrow today. I think the word is still used, with disparaging overtones of course.
My feeling is that much of the commercial fiction being published today which is of very of the moment and incorporates references to technology profusely (not only gadgets but apps or ways of communicating through technology) may not age well in ten years' time.
I've been thinking a lot about why we read the classics and find them relevant and relatable today, when we live in such a different world and I believe the absence of obscure technological references is probably one of the reasons. Most of the technological progress discussed in the classics are things we are familiar with even though they were a novelty in their time (for instance the beginning of rail travel), but technology evolves so fast today that it's difficult to catch up with what's happening and therefore we can very easily fall off the wagon.
Young authors today (mid20s -mid 30s) will be of course reflecting a reality that they are experiencing but which may not resonate with a wider public in a few year's time due to this fast technological progress. I think Sally Rooney might be the exception here as she has found a way to be of her time and timeless, and Intermezzo is a great example of what we can expect from her in future novels. We'll have to stick around to see who we are still reading in a few decades.
Yes, perhaps we can put our predictions in some sort of time capsule. I was going to mention Sally Rooney, and the pressure on her to keep up to the standard she has set herself. Thanks for your thought-provoking comments.
Virginia Woolf’s essay Middlebrow was in large part an ad hominem attack on J B Priestley, who was never named, but easily identified from things in the essay. She hated him calling her ‘the high priestess of Bloomsbury’. ‘Brows’, high, low and middle, were much discussed in the 1920s, notably on BBC radio. Priestley wrote a splendid essay against all this, and claiming to be a ‘broadbrow’. The Leavises, FR and Queenie, also had much to say on the subject, from a somewhat highbrow standpoint - deploring dons reading detective stories, etc.
Ah yes, thank you John. Perhaps Leonard advised Virginia against 'dissing' Priestley overtly in 1932? Interesting that the Leavises were so worried about dons being swayed by popular fiction, with the risk that such novels might infiltrate the ivory towers. I guess that's a trope that Dorothy L. Sayers plays with by setting Gaudy Night in an Oxford college in 1935.
Very wise of Leonard. It shows, doesn't it, how those labels got under her (and other writers') skin, even though she used humour to counter those feelings.
As I've a hunch if you asked two people to cite 3 middlebrow novels, they might come up with very different books because a precise definition is not possible, it is hard for me to say what exactly is a middlebrow novel. My definition is fiction that is not experimental in technique and not usually transgressive of present day usual or normative values. It has a disparaging connotative force. Perhaps the original Bloomsbury group thought the designation up. I would say Winifred Holtby's South Riding is middlebrow though a masterpiece, and insightful, courageus in many ways. NB I can't find the schedule for Sherriff's Fortnight in September; please send me a copy.
Excuse typos. I had a major stroke Jan 2024; since then 3 stroke events. My whole left side is worse (leg lame), I've lost typing accuracy and what's left me. Typing bad. Please send schedule
Thank you for letting me know, Ellen, what a horrible thing to happen and please don't worry about typing errors! Very touched you are reading my newsletter. Will send more information about schedule to you email address, as well as here.
Those are really insightful views, Ellen and thanks so much for your input, which can't be easy for you. You have given me food for thought when it comes to discussing Fortnight in September, and I am planning the reading schedule as this:
18/19 May (this weekend or Monday): a post on, and discussion of, the first half of The Fortnight in September Chapters I to XV.
31 May/1 June: a post on, and discussion of, the second half of The Fortnight in September Chapters XVI to XXXII.
I'm off to unearth my Enchanted April DVD now, this has inspired me. I have read this book several times and didn't realise how other writers snobbishly only admired it on the quiet.
It's a lovely film version, I think (note the advertisement wording!) There was definitely a snobbery/anxiety around admitting you enjoyed a novel for its entertainment value. And novels by women were assumed to be less important (Woolf fought hard against that).
Yes, and long before Francis Galton came up with eugenics there was similar thinking connected to phrenology & being able to judge intelligence/character by head shape & facial features. Horrible.
This is a very enjoyable description of high, middle and lowbrow. For me reading highbrow literature is when I need to drink 2 cups of really strong coffee in order not to miss anything. Middlebrow is 1 cup of light roast or light coffee and lowbrow needs no coffee at all. There is a Cambridge educated historian (whose mentor was a famous Cambridge English historian) who has written 2 books on Nehru and has incredible insights about Nehru and politics in India but I have to study his books carefully. But his insights about are India are great. I guess Dickens is Middlebrow or maybe Virginia Woolf thought he was but I think of him as high middlebrow because sometimes I miss things but his description of people and what they say is so meticulous like a police charge sheet with no significant details omitted even if not immediately connected with any sort of crime. Lee Child is thought of as lowbrow because of the violence but his characters are very well worked out like Dickens. Lee Child encourages readers to work out whatever they don't understand and to figure things out just as his hero, Jack Reacher, who is a very modern hero. I think most readers enjoy books in all three categories and there are the better ones in all three categories too. These conversations get one thinking about which books they have enjoyed the most and which ones they might enjoy reading in the future.
That's a great analogy, thank you Larry! I hear very positive things about Lee Child's writing (the former TLS editor and various academics are major fans) and agree with you about enjoying books from different categories at different times of the day!
Good questions about midddle-brow novels. I wonder if the term sometimes puts off readers, because they think the book might be flimsy or shallow. But of course many of the novels designated middle-brow are actually brilliant, clever, funny works - especially those by Elizabeth von Arnim and Sylvia Townsend Warner. Thanks so much for your reading programme for 2025 - it looks terrific. All those books are well worth studying.
Thanks so much for mentioning my edition of Mrs Dalloway, to be published by Oxford World’s Classics in May this year for the centenary of its first publication. We intend to launch the book in Cambridge in October. Details to follow on the Literature Cambridge website.
Thank you Trudi and I agree – the term is still used in a dismissive way, I feel, but it's encouraging that there's been so much scholarly work on the so-called middlebrow in fiction and other art forms. It's very much associated with works by women, and presumed to be intended for a female readership. Looking forward to the launch of your edition of Mrs Dalloway!
I was going to ask whether you'd read Woolf's tongue in cheek diatribe about middlebrows ('If any human being, man, woman, dog, cat or half-crushed worm dares call me "middlebrow" I will take my pen and stab him, dead.' Haha.) But of course you had!
Thank you very much for mentioning our group read of To the Lighthouse. I suppose if I'd planned more carefully, we would be doing Mrs Dalloway during the hundred year anniversary! Oh well. Lovely post, Ann! You've put a smile on my dial.
Thank you Tash, I do love that quote from Woolf! She didn't take herself too seriously and loved a laugh (her nephew Quentin Bell didn't really appreciate her humour, though his brother Julian did). I think it's great that you're doing To the Lighthouse, and will enjoy dipping in.
Here in the U.S., the WWII-era novel Forever Amber (1944) was at first published as a serious historical novel (almost 1,000 pages!) set in the Restoration Era of Charles II of England. It was a bit bawdy and quite controversial. The publisher had to go to a lengthy trial to defend it against charges of obscenity. Despite attempts to ban and censor it, it was a huge bestseller, though gradually demoted to middlebrow. It fell out of print, was republished in 2000, and regained a small audience, but so few people today have heard of Kathleen Winsor.
That's so interesting, Nava, thank you. I see that Elaine Showalter is a fan and I like her description of how Forever Amber was received in the UK: 'The novel came out in England in 1945. While English women were weeping over Celia Johnson's stoic portrayal of sexual renunciation in Brief Encounter they were also bonding over the bawdy, upwardly-mobile Amber St Clare.' Kathleen Winsor did a good job raising morale, it seems!
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/10/featuresreviews.guardianreview19
Wow, thank you so much ... I'm working on a book project into which Forever Amber figures and this Guardian article will be so useful. I should also mention that I'm drowning in notes on Peyton Place by Grace Metalious — a novel that was hugely scandalous when it came out, considered middlebrow at best and trash at worst. Of late it has been reconsidered as an unwitting feminist classic.
Oh my goodness, this has woken up a distant, well buried, very early memory mash up from my early childhood of the first moon landing, an assassination (both terrified me!) and my mum being absolutely transfixed, watching Peyton Place on TV (I’m in the UK and from the memory bundle I’m guessing it must have been the late 60’s?). Mia Farrow was in it I think…Your study of it sounds so interesting.
Agreed, Jaimie, hope Nava shares more of her research with us on her Substack!
I do like the sound of Peyton Place too. Sounds like a great project, look forward to hearing more!
Congratulations on 5,000 subscribers! What a lovely landmark.
Am thinking about the middlebrow question. I've never really liked that distinction.
The idea of three tiers does actally work for me, though, just with different meanings and values attached. That is, I'd say that I divide what I read into serious fiction, which is explicitly attempting to do something deep and requires my full attention; light fiction, which is amusing without much subtlety of language or thought; and then a huge, wonderful middle that is made up of books written by serious people who enjoy both language and thinking and have something interesting to say primarily through story, often a highly entertaining story. A lot of what I most enjoy is probably actually serious literature masquerading, sucessfully, as the third category.
Thank you Maria! I do like your 'three-tier' approach as a reader, and I'm hoping you'll write something about 'serious literature masquerading, sucessfully, as the third category'. It seems foolish to try to pin down and label a particular book, but I guess that's what prizes like the Booker do, singling novels out as more ambitious in their aims.
Have been thinking about that category — the first masquerading as the third. I think that I would put all of Jane Austen, much of Mark Twain, much of Dickens, most of Shakespeare’s plays (in his time), in that category, just to think in terms of writers whose work is canonical today . Does that ring true —?
I would love to hear more! My sense is that Mark Twain is much less read on this side of the Atlantic, but that might have changed since Percival Everett's James. And as you say, perception of what counts as serious literature shifts over time, and that's a good thing... allowing less familiar voices from the same era to be heard.
This has kept me thinking, and also about how much might be a matter of taste, and what one finds easy to read. I have Austen, Twain, etc in the “seriously-intended literature masquerading as the vast middle” simply because I find them easy and entertaining to read. I don't have that feeling for Woolf or Hardy (the novels) or a lot of D.H. Lawrence, so I put them into the “explicitly intending to be serious literature” category. I don't know if that's really fair…
Fascinating to hear that Twain isn't much read in the UK! I adored him as a kid — not really “Tom Sawyer” or “Huckleberry Finn” — I never reread those — but his tall tales and memoirs of traveling to Europe and the Diaries of Adam and Eve (all laugh-out-loud funny). And especially his “The Prince and The Pauper,” which is to his work as “A Christmas Carol” is to Dickens's. He also did “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,” which, in de-romanticizing the Round Table stories, had a big impact on me, though I found the book itself not as well written as the others, and also sort of resented having the romance be taken away! Twain also did, under a different pseudonym (“Twain” itself is a pseudonym) an adoring historical novel on Joan of Arc. Funny, I haven't read him since I was a kid, but this is bringing it all back…
There is a marvelous story of a young Kipling going to pay homage to Twain in Connecticut. Twain is a bit bewildered, but years later figures out who that young guy must have been. Or something like that. Will try to find it. (Edited to add: Twain didn't have a lot of time for Kipling then, without having read him or had any idea who he was, as I recall, and was later put off by all the things that put us off Kipling today. But my memory is quite vague.)
This is really fascinating ….I spent three or four years reading only Contemporary Women’s Fiction and Women’s Romance after completing my Masters, partly for fun but also to learn how the authors approach their writing. Both genres are still so quickly dismissed (written by women for women!!! 😤) despite being so often skilfully written, and dealing with some big and serious issues. I’d put many of them in your middle category, but I think they’re often collectively placed in ‘light fiction’ While so much serious fiction I find lacking in depth, and sometimes skill.
Thank you for your insightful comment, Jaimie, and like you my blood boils when novels by women writers are assumed to be intended only for women readers. Also it's still the case that fiction by male writers is given more attention by male critics and academics. Though perhaps things are better now than they were, the TLS took steps to make sure more women writers were reviewed and taken seriously.
Replying to you both here: I loved, loved the novel Less, by Andrew Sean Greer, which I think of as a top feel-good novel because all of the characters are basically well-meaning towards each other. I have given it to people who needed to read something cheering. I was still a little startled when it won the Pulitzer Prize: not because I didn't think it deserved it, but because other books focused primarily on relationships generally don't get considered in that category. It made me wonder whether the world of Pulitzer prizes simply wasn't aware of an entire field of literature written largely by women and marketed as commercial fiction.
Yes! I was thinking largely of dismissed women writers when I described that middle category. (And what a neat project you did.). I read a fair amount of what is now called “feel-good” fiction, which is usually marketed as fluff, and am interested by how often the authors have really serious ideas about the world that they want to convey to their readers (and succeed at conveying).
I always think of Penelope Lively as typical of a writer considered middlebrow and therefore underrated - being female seems to have had a lot to do with the label. Also Shirley Hazzard who I came across belatedly and I think is as good as Penelope Fitzgerald (almost) and with the same incredible way of frequently writing a mind-blowing sentence. I'm just reading a biography Elizabeth Jane Howard who again is put in the middlebrow bracket. My goodness, she led a racier life than I ever knew was possible in her (and my parents) generation! Thank you for the reading recommendations.
Absolutely, Vicky, the female aspect is definitely one we'll be discussing. Thanks for mentioning those authors, I will be adding them to my reading list too!
The classifications Highbrow/Middlebrow/Lowbrow say more about the reader than the book. Literally. They feel to be a product of class and snobbery. I wonder if these terms are more common in the UK than elsewhere, America for example. The football equivalent of lowbrow fiction is ‘route 1’, a dismissive description of play that dispenses with passing, opting instead to kick the ball directly toward goal and hope for the best. My publisher wasn’t sure if my novel should be categorised as literary (middlebrow) or commercial (lowbrow) fiction. There was never any doubt in my mind, it’s unashamedly lowbrow black comedy. Whether it could call itself commercial is questionable, given my publisher went bust shortly after publishing it and it only sold in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Does that make me a lowbrow author of ethereal fiction?
Absolutely agree, Simon. Such oversimplified classifications of literature in the early 20th century were very much based on snobbishness and social anxiety… and I’m sure that continues.
The number of comments I’ve made reflect how many times I’ve come back to this essay Ann, and each time I find something that takes me on a wonderful tangent. As much as I love late Georgian and Victorian literature, the era from around 1910 onwards really fascinates me. Perhaps because I had women from these era’s in my life during my early childhood and teens, and as an adult these books give me insight into so much more about what may have been their internal worlds, and eternal experiences that as a child I would have been completely unaware of.
Last night I went down a Monica Dickens rabbit hole. I remember borrowing her books about her career as a nurse from the local Library (they had pink covers I think) and absolutely loving them. I realise now she wrote so many more books!
Can I also put in a word for Flora Thompson whose ‘Lark Rise’ books were all published within this time frame I think…
Thank you for taking me on such inspiring and engrossing adventures, and congratulations on 5000 subscribers…I’m sure that number is going to grow and grow!
Thank you for your lovely & thoughtful comments Jaimie, I really appreciate them. Like you, I studied mostly 19th-century literature and 20th-century classics for many years, and it was only more recently that I discovered there was a treasure trove of fiction by women that I'd missed or underestimated. Like you, I devoured Monica Dickens's books from the library and am surprised I didn't become a nurse as a result. But I also loved books intended (I suspect) for boys, such as by Wilbur Smith, and it never occurred to me to wonder why those adventurous heroes were always male! Nowadays Lark Rise is more my cup of tea, so thanks for reminding me of that series.
I didn't know about Punch magazine having coined the term middlebrow but given the definition they came up with, I shouldn't be surprised : ) I didn't know Von Armin was perceived as a middlebrow author in her time, so I wonder who of the writers publishing commercial fiction today (the literary middlebrow of our times) will be still read in 20 or 30 years' time and resist the test of time like Von Armin has.
That's a great point, Cristina, would you make any predictions of who might still be read in 2050? I like your idea that commercial fiction = middlebrow today. I think the word is still used, with disparaging overtones of course.
My feeling is that much of the commercial fiction being published today which is of very of the moment and incorporates references to technology profusely (not only gadgets but apps or ways of communicating through technology) may not age well in ten years' time.
I've been thinking a lot about why we read the classics and find them relevant and relatable today, when we live in such a different world and I believe the absence of obscure technological references is probably one of the reasons. Most of the technological progress discussed in the classics are things we are familiar with even though they were a novelty in their time (for instance the beginning of rail travel), but technology evolves so fast today that it's difficult to catch up with what's happening and therefore we can very easily fall off the wagon.
Young authors today (mid20s -mid 30s) will be of course reflecting a reality that they are experiencing but which may not resonate with a wider public in a few year's time due to this fast technological progress. I think Sally Rooney might be the exception here as she has found a way to be of her time and timeless, and Intermezzo is a great example of what we can expect from her in future novels. We'll have to stick around to see who we are still reading in a few decades.
Yes, perhaps we can put our predictions in some sort of time capsule. I was going to mention Sally Rooney, and the pressure on her to keep up to the standard she has set herself. Thanks for your thought-provoking comments.
Virginia Woolf’s essay Middlebrow was in large part an ad hominem attack on J B Priestley, who was never named, but easily identified from things in the essay. She hated him calling her ‘the high priestess of Bloomsbury’. ‘Brows’, high, low and middle, were much discussed in the 1920s, notably on BBC radio. Priestley wrote a splendid essay against all this, and claiming to be a ‘broadbrow’. The Leavises, FR and Queenie, also had much to say on the subject, from a somewhat highbrow standpoint - deploring dons reading detective stories, etc.
I think I need to investigate further as literary gossip always gets my attention :)
Ah yes, thank you John. Perhaps Leonard advised Virginia against 'dissing' Priestley overtly in 1932? Interesting that the Leavises were so worried about dons being swayed by popular fiction, with the risk that such novels might infiltrate the ivory towers. I guess that's a trope that Dorothy L. Sayers plays with by setting Gaudy Night in an Oxford college in 1935.
Yes indeed - the essay was originally a letter to the New Statesman, but Leonard is said to have persuaded her not to send it.
Very wise of Leonard. It shows, doesn't it, how those labels got under her (and other writers') skin, even though she used humour to counter those feelings.
Thank you so much for the PR! Looking forward to meeting you
My pleasure Sarah, very much look forward to your talk (and our college lunch).
Thank you for that lovely Bookish News section – so many good links in there!
Thank you Frances!
My pleasure Ann and thank you for another thought provoking essay. I’m looking forward to reading Lolly Willowes with you all 💕
That's great, Jaimie, so pleased you'll be taking part.
Thank you for the mention, Ann. I so enjoyed watching the film, 'Enchanted April', thanks to your suggestion.
That's great, Yasmin! Thanks for sending the link.
As I've a hunch if you asked two people to cite 3 middlebrow novels, they might come up with very different books because a precise definition is not possible, it is hard for me to say what exactly is a middlebrow novel. My definition is fiction that is not experimental in technique and not usually transgressive of present day usual or normative values. It has a disparaging connotative force. Perhaps the original Bloomsbury group thought the designation up. I would say Winifred Holtby's South Riding is middlebrow though a masterpiece, and insightful, courageus in many ways. NB I can't find the schedule for Sherriff's Fortnight in September; please send me a copy.
Excuse typos. I had a major stroke Jan 2024; since then 3 stroke events. My whole left side is worse (leg lame), I've lost typing accuracy and what's left me. Typing bad. Please send schedule
Thank you for letting me know, Ellen, what a horrible thing to happen and please don't worry about typing errors! Very touched you are reading my newsletter. Will send more information about schedule to you email address, as well as here.
Those are really insightful views, Ellen and thanks so much for your input, which can't be easy for you. You have given me food for thought when it comes to discussing Fortnight in September, and I am planning the reading schedule as this:
18/19 May (this weekend or Monday): a post on, and discussion of, the first half of The Fortnight in September Chapters I to XV.
31 May/1 June: a post on, and discussion of, the second half of The Fortnight in September Chapters XVI to XXXII.
I'm off to unearth my Enchanted April DVD now, this has inspired me. I have read this book several times and didn't realise how other writers snobbishly only admired it on the quiet.
It's a lovely film version, I think (note the advertisement wording!) There was definitely a snobbery/anxiety around admitting you enjoyed a novel for its entertainment value. And novels by women were assumed to be less important (Woolf fought hard against that).
The whole highbrow/lowbrow thing has its roots in eugenics, I believe, so it always makes me wince a bit...
Yes, and long before Francis Galton came up with eugenics there was similar thinking connected to phrenology & being able to judge intelligence/character by head shape & facial features. Horrible.
This is a very enjoyable description of high, middle and lowbrow. For me reading highbrow literature is when I need to drink 2 cups of really strong coffee in order not to miss anything. Middlebrow is 1 cup of light roast or light coffee and lowbrow needs no coffee at all. There is a Cambridge educated historian (whose mentor was a famous Cambridge English historian) who has written 2 books on Nehru and has incredible insights about Nehru and politics in India but I have to study his books carefully. But his insights about are India are great. I guess Dickens is Middlebrow or maybe Virginia Woolf thought he was but I think of him as high middlebrow because sometimes I miss things but his description of people and what they say is so meticulous like a police charge sheet with no significant details omitted even if not immediately connected with any sort of crime. Lee Child is thought of as lowbrow because of the violence but his characters are very well worked out like Dickens. Lee Child encourages readers to work out whatever they don't understand and to figure things out just as his hero, Jack Reacher, who is a very modern hero. I think most readers enjoy books in all three categories and there are the better ones in all three categories too. These conversations get one thinking about which books they have enjoyed the most and which ones they might enjoy reading in the future.
That's a great analogy, thank you Larry! I hear very positive things about Lee Child's writing (the former TLS editor and various academics are major fans) and agree with you about enjoying books from different categories at different times of the day!