Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis

by Miss Read

Book Overview

In the English village of Fairacre, the retired schoolteachers Dolly Clare and Emily Davis enjoyed a remarkable friendship, as this moving volume reveals. Childhood playmates in Beech Green, they would remain close throughout their long lives, eventually sharing a cottage in their retirement. They felt grief when a village family was lost on the Titanic. They each experienced young love and then heartbreak when the First World War interrupted both...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618884343
• ISBN13: 9780618884346
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Love Miss Read but this book has problems

I have nearly all of the Miss Read books. I love the places, the people and the glimpse of English village life before, through and after the war. This is not your usual "cozy" series; it has its ups and downs as does real life. I feel that I know the people and want to find out "what's next". Miss Clare and her friend, Miss Davis, are people one reads about in the other books and I was glad to learn more about their respective lives. I love reading a book that is so well written in style and content with none of the "potty-mouth" that seems to be necessary in so many books today. That said, the physical plant of this book was disappointing in that Miss Clare's story ends abruptly. Apparently the printer had indigestion. It cut off the last few chapters and started Emily Davis. Since it costs to return it, I just ordered the two separate books. I wished Miss Read were alive to thank for so many happy hours.

Great Story

This was a great story. It takes you back to before Miss Read came to Fairacre and gives the history.

Fiction with some history thrown in!

Any of Miss Read's stories are excellent and enjoyable reading but this one provides a historical look at Britain during the World Wars as seen from the viewpoint of common everyday citizens in her little villages. Miss Read is a teacher who knows how to spin a tale but maintains a thread of history through the characters assessment of what is happening during those years. I loaned it to my 90 yr old neighbor who thoroughly enjoyed it as well. She was able to contrast what life was like in the U. S. to the rationing, calling up of troops, etc. in Britain during that time. Excellent reading.

a century in an English village

Dolly Clare, longtime schoolteacher at Fairacre School, outlasted many headmasters. In this volume, the 70-year-old spinster looks back at the many changes in her beloved village of Beech Green. Miss Clare remembers her life with just a touch of sentimentality, which we lovers of Fairacre and Thrush Green are only to happy to grant her. It's amazing to consider that Dolly Clare saw the advent of the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, regular bus service (which would end the isolation of English villages), and the welfare state; two world wars, and the end of agrarian England in her 70 years. In short, Dolly, born in the Victorian Era, would live into the Space Age. What an amazing life!

A place I hope still exists somewhere

Ah- Miss Read, what a perfect way to relax and know that you are going to have a soothing visit. At the same time you will enter the world of an English village, the way I hope they still exist somewhere. Twenty years ago I lived in an English village and the life and reactions of the people were much as Miss Read depicts. These stories take me back to a time I loved and a place where life was a bit less complicated - maybe not to the characters in the story, but certainly less than what seems to surround most of us today. It's the perfect "safe" book to give your mother or someone else who would rather not be entertained with violence. I guess a number of people would consider it an old fashioned read, but then it's nice to have that available