Grown-up books

I remember going straight from Enid Blyton at the end of my childhood, with maybe a little elapse of time before starting on Agatha Christie which I remember reading throughout my teens. I also remember being about 15 or so and moaning to my mother I was bored, she disappeared upstairs and brought down a tome, called "Gone with The Wind" with a "read this" so I did! and felt quite bereft when I finished it. I probably read Wuthering Heights around that time too.

Sherlock Holmes, all read before I was twelve.

Agatha Christie

👍😁

Lathyrus

Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn.

All sneaked from my mothers bookshelves.

And Wuthering Heights. Couldn’t make head not tail of the plot and who was who.

Me too! I loved them.

Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn.

All sneaked from my mothers bookshelves.

And Wuthering Heights. Couldn’t make head not tail of the plot and who was who.

I don’t think I ever really made a distinction. I read grown up factual books about ballet and music from the age of nine or so. The first grown up novel I remember was Lady Eleanor Smith’s Ballerina. I was ten and totally addicted to it, though it really wasn’t suitable for children. The plays of Bernard Shaw soon followed, after seeing Saint Joan in my first year at senior school.

Witzend snap! I read Dracula at 10. I was a very precocious reader and had read all the books in the children's section of the library. The assistant librarian gave me an adult ticket so I had the full range to choose from. My dad had to give permission but I had been reading his library books for ages anyway.

H G Wells' "The Time Machine", borrowed from my grandfather's bookshelf when I was 10 or 11.

Probably Dracula - a very old copy belonging to a granny - even the Gothic script on the front looked scary! It really freaked me out - I couldn’t even have the book in the room afterwards, in case it somehow summoned him - and of course had to keep the bedroom window closed, in case he crawled in that way, as a bat! 🦇