Elizabeth Goudge Books

I first read this book (then titled Pilgrims's Inn) when I was about 15 years old. I loved it then and I love it now! It is a story of growing, changing and healing, that is both soothing and uplifting. Like an old friend, I have turned to it again and again through the years.

The Eliot trilogy is my favorite of the Goudge books - I wish it could be adapted into a Masterpiece Theater series. The characters are complex and drawn with love, the descriptions relax me, the setting can't be better - the English countryside. Plus there are wise thoughts sprinkled throughout. A great series!

I read this book a few months ago for the first time, and decided that I would purchase it as soon as I could find a good but not-too-expensive copy (being only a poor college student!) An avowed bookworm, I have read extensively in the different genres of fiction, including fictionalized history (a novel written about a real historical person) and historical fiction (set in history, can include real events and people but is not required to) and I can say unreservedly that The Child From The Sea is the best novel of either genre I've read. So many authors writing historical fiction fall into the trap of approaching historical events and people from a twenty-first century mindset. I have read so many books where medieval or renaissance or eighteenth century characters have all these modern ideas and mindsets, and even (and this is where I really cringe) talk like American teenagers in 2008! Elizabeth Goudge, however, has avoided both mistakes. She has written a book that rings true in every way; her characters are to the core of their time period. The story itself is fascinating, but it is the quality of the writing and the haunting beauty of the tone and setting that makes this book truly a masterpiece.

Elizabeth Goudge is my favorite author. In this book she combines history and all the many types of love ( love for God, selfless love, romance, etc.) to make a book that I just hated to leave! It takes place in Cornwall, but also takes us to France, to see the devastation in the wake of the French Revolution from the eyes of two people. I felt like I was there!

I love this book! Although I'm 42 and my child will no longer sit with me to read it, I read it every Christmas. This is a charming Christmas story from a simpler time. It's little Polly's first Christmas since her parents died. She's living with her aunts now in an old English seaport town and having a little trouble adjusting. Goudge tells a story that will remind you to notice every-day miracles and the ways in which children can keep us all young. The reading level makes it appropriate for children comfortable with chapter books, or for reading out loud over a few nights before Christmas to settle the younger kids down. Please note that I did not buy my copy on Amazon, so I can't speak to the editions it is selling. In fact, I can't remember how my copy came to me, but I am trying to find copies to share with my young neices. P.S. If you want to know what a "sugar mouse" is, try looking at a shop that imports British gourmet items. We did!

Miss Goudge's autobiography has all the qualities that makes her fiction such a pleasure to read, vivid, interesting characters, marvellous descriptions of places, and lovely touches of humour. The earlier part of her life is described in the grteatest detail, her childhood in Wells, her teenage years in Ely, her twenties and thirties in oxford, where her father was Regius Professor of Theology. As in her novels, spirituality is very a very improtant part of the book, there are many accounts of religious and supernatural experiences, both her own and others, particularly those of her mother, whose life was blighted by illness and pain, but who remained gay and vivacious throughout her painful life, buoyed up by religious faith and indomitable courage. The humorous touches are wonderful, as when she describes the convoluted relationships on her father's side of the family, where there had been much intermarriage between cousins etc. One of her relatives once tried to sort out the family tree, but "on coming to the conclusion that he was his own uncle,he gave up in despair." If you have enjoyed reading miss Goudge's novels, you will want to read this too.

Elizabeth Goudge wanted to answer questions from her friends and readers about her life. So many details on her family and the places where she lived, photos, and details on her books, the ones she loved, and mainly this period of time, when she was young, which seems so far away. It is marvellous to discover the persons the loved, for example her maternal grandma and how she depicted her in the book "the arch in the tempest". When pationnate by E.G.'s writings, this is just a wonderful book and such a gift.

For the Goudge completist, don't be quick to order this book thinking it's a newly discovered work. It's simply "Linnets & Valerians" with a new title. A wonderful book, but if you already have L&V, you don't need this!

I received this from my grandmother's collection. When I read
the first tale, The Two Caves, I knew I had to finish the rest. Hope they reissue these! Also includes: "The Silver Horse","Three Men," Lost-One Angel","Saint Nicolas","John", and "Giovanni"
From back cover: "Fate and silver-maned horse guide four orphans to a new home; An angel lost in London brings joy to two old and lonely hearts (our favorite); a disciple of Jesus in an angony of pain and remorse learns the meaning of resurrection; a rapscallion band of itinerant actors play the spirit of Christmas and find it in their tattered souls...

This is a collection of short stories about the du Frocq family from Island Magic. The tone is much more light-hearted than the earlier book, there is none of the dark drama of Island Magic, the Grandfather for instance, although an autocrat is not a malignant figure as he is in island Magic. In this collection the boisterous and ingeneous du Frocq children involve a number of unwary characters in their madcap schemes, a famous actor finds himself taken prisoner and locked in the loft, a publisher is persuaded to buy a bookshop that will run at a massive loss, a doctor rash enough to set up a rival practice to Grandfather's is outwitted, the new island Seigneur is persuaded not to evict an aged miller from his mill. The stories are full of humour and charm, this is a lovely book.

Unsurprisingly enough, Elizabeth Goudge has done it again. This is a beautiful story of love in its many forms. Goudge does not so much bring her characters to life as present us with living beings with whom to acquaint ourselves. And her descriptions of the physical world are, as always, unsurpassable. Read this book, and get your hands on everything else she ever wrote.