'January 22nd - Robert startles me at breakfast by asking if my cold -
which he has hitherto ignored - is better. I reply that it has gone.
Then why, he asks, do I look like that? Feel that life is wholly
unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat' It's not easy being a
Provincial Lady in Devonshire in the 1920s, juggling a grumpy husband,
mischievous children and a host of domestic dilemmas - from rice mould
to a petulant cook. But this Provincial Lady will not be defeated; not
by wayward flower bulbs, not by unexpected houseguests, not even by the
Blitz. She will continue to preside over the W.I., endure rain-drenched
family picnics and succeed as a published author, all the while tending
to her strawberries. The Diary of a Provincial Lady is a brilliantly
observed comic novel, as funny and fresh today as when it was first
written. Widely regarded as one of the funniest English authors and an
heir to Jane Austen, E.M. Delafield was born in Sussex in 1890. She took
the name Delafield to distinguish herself from her mother (De la
Pasture), also a novelist, and wrote over 30 books which could be 'as
laugh-out-loud funny as PG Wodehouse' before her death in 1943.
