Ghostly affairs

The slim volume (of 140 pages of text) snapped above was one of my two pick-me-ups from the Raynes Park Platform Library on Friday afternoon. Friday just past that is. A little battered but produced in complete conformity with the authorised economy standards - from that long ago time when the electorate understood that if you fought in wars, you had to pay for them. Your standard of living took a bit of a bashing.

A slight, a light, but entertaining read which kept me amused for most of the rest of the afternoon. A romance, perhaps the Mills & Boon of its day, but one which did not get sweaty or otherwise difficult and which had a good eye for suburban silliness.

Turning to the back cover, I find that R. A. Dick is in good company, such luminaries as James Joyce, Dylan Thomas, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and Flora Thompson.

Turning to Wikipedia, I find that the author is actually a lady from Ireland called Josephine Leslie and that this book was her magnum opus, made into at least one film and one television series. Oddly, on Friday, I thought that it was two films, but I can find no trace of the second today. Perhaps I got muddled up with the many episodes from the series. In any event, I dare say that I shall be visiting ebay some time soon to get the film.

PS 1: Leslie lived on until 1979, so I hope she got her fair share of the loot from the series.

PS 2: I had thought that Quiller-Couch figured in the Arden Shakespeare, possibly as an editor. However, a quick peek turns up Dover Wilson, as someone to be quoted rather than an editor, and no Quiller-Couch at all. But he does turn up with Dover Wilson as a joint editor of the Cambridge 'New Shakespeare'. So memory not completely defective.

References

Reference 1: The ghost of Mrs. Muir - R. A. Dick - 1947. Guild Book No.252.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Quiller-Couch. A versatile chap, the inventor, inter alia, of the advice: 'if you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - whole-heartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings'. Advice which I do understand, but generally fail to stick with.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Leslie.

Reference 4: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: Laughing with the Captain in the House - Margaret D. Stetz - 1996. Stronger meat, from the John Hopkins University Press.

Reference 5: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039420/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1. The film.

Reference 6: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062565/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2. The long running TV series.