Summer Book Reviews
Featuring Five Novels by Grace Livingston Hill
No matter which era or event fascinates them, history lovers usually want to understand what the world was like for those in the midst of it. For example, I surely would not want to time travel into World War II but am fascinated by how ordinary people lived. Reading wartime accounts of personal experiences runs the gamut from boring to painful to downright miraculous.
Reading 1940s magazines and newspapers has revealed so much of daily life, as unglamorous as it often was. It is easy to romanticize the war, with all its heroes and action—and movie producers often did that, maybe in part to keep up morale—but the average citizen seems to have been merely attempting to survive with a sense of normalcy.
Sometimes books are another way to experience history. Whether fiction or nonfiction, they can be little time capsules into a different generation. Browsing through an antique mall recently, I happened upon an author who gave the world the gift of many such windows in time. Born in 1865, Grace Livingston Hill began her writing career when she was yet a girl, writing stories for children. Her first book as an adult was published in 1887, to help pay for a family reunion. She also wrote magazine serials, newspaper articles, poetry and short stories. But her books!
Current Events through Fiction
Grace penned more than 100 novels before her death in 1947. They are easy to read, hard to put down and chock full of everyday life through the many decades she wrote. Of the five books I have read so far, four were written shortly before World War II and one in the middle of the war. I can’t help imaging any one of them on the bookshelves of various homes, offering comfort in the midst of trouble. Her books are not idyllic forays into imaginary plots. They meet the reader smack in the middle of real life. Grace wove current events throughout her stories.
Reading her novels almost a century later, it seems unreal that the world could have changed so much so fast…and yet remained so much the same. Her characters deal with difficult people and relationships, work through personal tragedies and family issues, and struggle to afford taxi fare in strange towns. They still offer encouragement and instruction.
The Peculiar Appeal of Grace
As another writer has said, “Through her characters, Grace teaches us about everyday things like housekeeping, menu planning, cooking, and caring for the sick; how to act and dress like a lady, regardless of the decade; making over dresses and hats as fashions change; the importance of beautiful surroundings and how to create something out of nothing to make even the simplest home more pleasant; and, most importantly, how to see God's handiwork in our everyday lives.”
Shown here are the five books I have read so far. They are full of 20th-century life—including a few curious things such as lorgnettes and mechanicians (when did we shorten that to mechanics?). They also portray characters dealing with many things we still do today. Some of the heroines have left home to find work, some are wealthy, some were well off but have fallen on hard circumstances. The characters are richly developed and the writing is winsome—there is nothing crude even if a character might be. I wonder how many others enjoyed these very books all those years ago?
References
https://gracelivingstonhill.com/the-backstory
“For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
John 3:16-17