Product Description

This is a funny, intensely readable 'hotwater bottle' which is a great Persephone favourite.This 1940 novel is the touching and often extremely funny story of a young English girl's growth towards maturity in the 1930s. We see her at school, on holiday in Somerset, her attempt at drama school, her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man, and finally the arrival of Mr Right.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11100 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 377 pages

About the Author
MONICA DICKENS (1915-92) was a debutante before working as a cook. One Pair of Hands (1937), her first book, described life in the kitchens of Kensington. It was the first of a group of semi-autobiographies of which Mariana (1940), technically a novel, was one. 'My aim is to entertain rather than instruct,' she wrote. 'I want readers to recognise life in my books.'

Customer Reviews

The life and trials of Mary
Mariana is the story of a young girl's life in the 1930's. Told in flashback, it opens with Mary waiting anxiously for news of her young husband who has been reported missing during WWII. Then, we turn back to Mary's childhood and adolescence, a time of school, wonderful summer holidays, first love, a disastrous attempt at drama school, love affairs with the wrong men, and finally, the meeting with the right man which will lead us back to the present. Monica Dickens wrote this novel when she was only 24, and it's perspective is that of a lively young woman who has no idea what to do with her life. It's written with great humour (the episode when Mary recites Tennyson's "Mariana" at drama school is very funny) and the details of life in the 30's are an added attraction to modern readers. The tone of light romance deepens as we move closer to the end of the novel, and remember the opening scenes of Mary waiting for news of her husband. The final scenes are beautifully written and very moving.

A timeless tale of growing up
I picked this up just after reading Monica Dickens' autobiography, An Open Book, in which Dickens explains how much she drew from her own life when writing Mariana (her second book). With this personal experience to guide her, she paints a lovely, unvarnished portrait of a girl's growing up in London between the wars. She touches on issues that nearly every female can relate to: the excitement and pain of a first love; the joys and struggles of making friends; the often difficult task of fitting in at school; and the search for excitement and purpose in life. In refreshingly unpretentious prose and in a deceptively simple style, Dickens, like her great-grandfather Charles, gets to the heart of basic human emotions and dramas. It's a book to take to bed on a cold night or to read while on holiday: fun, honest, and heartwarming - another Persephone delight.

an excellent and enjoyable read
I found 'Mariana' surprisingly gripping and was hooked from start to finish. Whilst awaiting news of her husband during the Second World War, Mary looks over her life's experiences and the resulting novel has moments of real humour and poignancy. Whilst the novel is bursting with likeable and realistic characters, Mary is undoubtedly the star and is both lovable and wonderfully fallible. She is a character I could easily identify with and I finished the novel feeling as if I really knew her! She recounts her teenage years and early adulthood with honesty and a lack of pretension, which is characteristic of the novel as a whole. Dealing with romance, friendship and growing up, Mariana has similarities to 'The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets' by Eva Rice but I felt it was an even more interesting and satisfying read!