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The Oaken Heart (Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., 1941)
Taking the form of a diary written from the - slightlyfictionalised - village of Auburn, Margery Allingham recounts the way in which the normal rhythm of life in the village was disrupted by events swirling to a head in Europe. The spine image at left is colour-corrected to enhance the faded type on the spine of my copy of The Oaken Heart - true colour appears below. Interestingly, my copy of the Doubleday edition suffers from an unprinted side of one of the early folios, the practical upshot being that a number of pages are irritatingly blank. I don't know if this is common to all of the editions that came from this run, but agree with certain critics who suggest that it would have made the book much more difficult to read. Further editions include:
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Margery
Allingham's only volume of autobiographical writing, The Oaken
Heart is an examination of the conditions in Allingham's
own corner of England in the days leading up to the outbreak
of the Second World War. Like many other pieces of that period,
it is recounted in a style that is a combination of longing for
peace and disbelief at the prospect of war - so soon again after
the cataclysmic events of 1914-1918.
