Posted by kate crosby on November 17, 1998 at 18:07:36:
In Reply to: Re: 'The Far-Distant Oxus'. posted by Dave Thewlis on November 16, 1998 at 18:39:49:
Thanks, Jack. Dave, Jack's ahead of me , but here's what I can add:
Escape to Persia, Jonathan Cape first published 1938
My copy ( no back to the spine so worth considerably less that Jack's amazing numbers!) is 6th Edition, 1948.
Oxus In Summer, Jonathan Cape, first published 1939
My copy 8th edition 194
So they did run to quite a few editions, right through WW2.
Escape To Persia takes place in the Spring holidays following the summer of the Far Distant Oxus. London Aunt Angela is conned into accepting a bet that the Hunterlys can't get to Exmoor within 24 hours, and with only ten shillings apiece. Of course they do it. Before they leave there are some pretty good London scenes, like shopping for vests in Harrods!! Once in Exmoor there are country adventures like saving the local poacher and riding in the point to point.
Oxus In Summer takes place the same year, summer holidays. Everything starts to go wrong when the Hunterlys are "caught" by Maurice trying to read his diary to find out more about him - you may remember he is a complete mystery, has no last name even. Actually they weren't, but the hut burns down, Maurice disappears and they spend a lot of the book tracking him down. It all ends well, but there is an elegiac note, talk of "the last summer", next summer going out to Sumatra, etc.
I'm surprised Jack doesn't like these books. I dipped into these two last night, and found I really liked the way the authors seem to get into the children's minds. Don't you remember boing bored to death at lot of the time?
The writing style is excellent - I think the authors were both almost schoolchildren, weren't they? There is a fine sense of the Exmoor countryside. There's no sailing, perahsp that's what does it for Jack. As a child I was extremely frustrated by the mystery of Maurice, I was always hoping he would be explained, but now I see that no reality could match one's imagination, so they did the right thing by leaving him unexplained.
I'll stop boring you in a minute, but on reflection I feel I also wanted to be like the eldest Hunterly, Bridget. She's a Nancy Blackett figure in a way, strong, and headstrong, all the things that weren't admired ( or allowed) at the time. Do you think these fictional strong women had an influence on what happened later?