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So, I was
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Old British Books
So, I was...
So, I was wondering who else loves those wonderful old British books that I do! (a.k.a mostly classics but there are other obscure ones too) I am not British, but my family is, so I grew up with lovely old falling-apart much-loved copies of the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Swallows and Amazons, basically anything by E. Nesbit and Enid Blyton, the Phantom Tollbooth(alright, so maybe that one isn't british, but it's still good!) and others. Every time I visited my grandma, I would run up to the attic where all the kids books were and I'd read these lovely books on an old fouton beside the jam and jelly shelf. So please come share your memories or recent exploits into A.A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Beatrix Potter, Rudyard Kipling, and more!
submitted by CaptainRead, age undecided, England!(if only...)
(January 27, 2014 - 8:57 am)
(January 27, 2014 - 8:57 am)
A.A. Milne! Oh I love Winnie the Pooh! I have a book that was given to me my first Christmas of classic Winnie the Pooh stories. I love it to death. Pooh Bear will always be a favorite of mine!
Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my favorite authors! Secret Garden was a beautiful story. I think Mary captures the essance of most writers, with her spirit and her secret little world all her own. If I could have a wish, it might be to have my own "Secret Garden". I also LOVE her book, A Little Princess. Sara Crew is like me in so many ways, from her roving imagination, to her quiet little ways.
I'd almost forgotten the book, Phantom Tollbooth. A teacher read that to us years ago. I don't remember much about the story, but I remember like it a lot. Me thinks I should try to find it again...
(January 27, 2014 - 2:51 pm)
Good old Pooh bear! I still have copies of Now we Are Six, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner with the pictures by Ernest Shepard that were given me by my Great-Grandmother when I was zero and three! Some people seem to think that Pooh Bear is for really little kids, but reading it when you're older, it's really very wise about the ways of the world and how silly grown-ups can be.(The Little Prince is like that too.) Reading the last chapter of A House at Pooh Corner always makes me cry.
I agree with you about a secret garden completely! I would love to have my own little corner filled with roses and tulips and "daffydils"(and "mastershalums" and haycorns too!)
The Phantom Tollbooth is one of those books that when you're reading it just seems to be a silly little fantasy filled with fun stuff, but when you get to the very last page and close the book with a long sigh, you realize that it may have just been one of the most important books in your life. At least, that what reading it feels like to me. It's definitely worth your while to find it!
(January 28, 2014 - 1:48 pm)
TOP!!!
(January 27, 2014 - 3:53 pm)
TOP!!!
(January 27, 2014 - 8:42 pm)
I love Frances Hodgson Burnett and The Phantom Tollbooth!
(January 27, 2014 - 8:52 pm)
I LOVE A.A. MILNE! That sounds so ridiculous since I'm fourteen but I'm a ridiculous Pooh fan, and will be til I die, I think. I've got whole scenes from the original Many Adventures film memorized.
I also really like Beatrix Potter. Her stories are so simple, and yet I love her paintings that bring the story alive.
And I totally love British writers in general. I could go on about them forever. The Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Tennyson, Percy Shelley, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Phillip Pullman, C.S. Lewis--pretty much every book in my library is British. Aside from Louisa May Alcott, I can't bring myself to like American writers.
James James Morrison Morrison Witherby George Dupree
Admin
(January 27, 2014 - 9:41 pm)
Don't worry, love of Pooh Bear is nowhere near ridiculous!(see my reply to BHR) The original movie is good, but unfortunately the later ones with weird animation aren't true to the spirit at all.
I don't have many of Beatrix Potter's books, but we have almost all of the GoodTimes films and they are very good!
"We are discovered and interrupted, Anna Maria; let us collect our property--and other people's--and depart at once. I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding. But I am persuaded that the knots would have proved indigestible, whatever you may urge to the contrary."
-Samuel Whiskers
@Admin, you are very right indeed:
James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."
(January 28, 2014 - 2:05 pm)
Ohhhhh, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE British authors. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charlotte Bronte, and Edith Nesbit are some of my favs!! I still love Frances Burnett- oh, the way she transports to London and the garden- really, all British books like that are just magic:)
(January 28, 2014 - 3:34 pm)
For Christmas I got the Bedside book of British stories, which is a book of British short stories and it is falling apart and old and lovely.
I never really liked The Secret Garden that much, but am a big fan of A Little Princess.
(January 28, 2014 - 6:22 pm)
That sounds like the most perfect book ever! What sort of stories are in it?
If you like The Little Princess, you should try reading Wishing for Tomorrow, by Hilary McKay, it is a sequel to The Little Princess, and although I don't normally like series' that switch authors (the originals are always better, don't you agree?) it is actuallky fairly good.
(February 6, 2014 - 5:45 pm)
Mostly stuff I hadn't heard of before, but there are some familiar authors. My favourite Sherlock Holmes is in it, which I'm really excited about!
(February 6, 2014 - 8:36 pm)
I LOVE Wishing for Tomorrow!! It is really a pretty good 'sequel' to Little princess. I also just LOVE Hilary Mckay!!
(February 7, 2014 - 11:25 am)
I like All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot. I am currently reading it for literature class. I love animals and British realated things so what could be better than them together? I also love British accents and will listen to anything somebody says if they speak in one.
(February 2, 2014 - 6:06 pm)
All Creatures Great and Small is a Really Great Book, and of course nothing could be better than that when you like animals and British stuff! Have you read about the Christmas kitten yet?
Reading what you said about British accents, I just realized that I am just like that, and that is actually probably why I like Doctor Who so much! Once, when playing outside with my younger brother, I started talking in a slightly British accent whenever I said something that the Doctor would have said, and I absolutely loved it! Too bad I couldn't keep the accent the whole time....
(February 6, 2014 - 5:39 pm)
I love All Creatures Great and Small! I originally found the BBC tv show about it (which was utterly fantastic), and so read all the books. Made me want to become a veterinarian.
And I love British accents. When you hear a Brit and an American talking back to back, the Brit always sounds so much more A, cultured, B, eloquent and witty, and C, the voice is always more beautiful than that of the American. I have most sadly been bitten by the Anglo-phile bug.
(February 7, 2014 - 6:45 pm)