Miss Read
Personal Information
Description
Dora Jessie Saint MBE (17 April 1913 – 7 April 2012), née Shafe, best known by the pen name Miss Read, was an English novelist and, by profession, a schoolmistress. Her pseudonym was derived from her mother's maiden name. She is best known for two series of novels set in the English countryside, the Fairacre novels and the Thrush Green novels.
Books
Celebrations at Thrush Green
When the Cotswold villagers of Thrush Green decide to combine the 100th anniversary of a mission school opened by the village's most distinguished son - the Victorian Nathaniel Patten - and the centenary of the village school, the plans are for a very special celebration indeed.
Mrs Griffin sends her love
Because of our inability to recognise our climatic shortcomings from the outset, arrangements for outdoor jollities get completely out of hand ...to the sometimes rather odd passions of childhood I collect stones with holes in them Miss Read captures the essence of rural life, and in particular of village schools, as only she can. This collection is interspersed with extracts from her letters and diaries (never before published).
Farther afield
The end of term arrives and Miss Read is looking forward to the weeks ahead, but on the very first day of the long summer holiday she falls and breaks her arm. Instantly all her plans are in tatters. Then her friend Amy comes up with a plan: and so it is the two of them leave Fairacre for the island of Crete. The change of scene provides a welcome break for both women, and when Miss Read returns, refreshed, to Fairacre, she is ready to tackle the problems that await her.
Village Christmas
The birth of a baby on Christmas Day to a new family in town reveals to the spinster sisters, Mary & Margaret, as well as other villagers, that they have been harshly critical of this over-friendly large family.