Greenery Street

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PREFACE BY REBECCA COHEN392ppISBN 9781903155257 PG Wodehouse described this 1925 novel as 'so good that it makes one feel that it's the only possible way of writing a book, to take an ordinary couple and just tell the reader all about them. It's the sort of book one wishes could go on for ever.' Greenery Street can be read on two levels: it is a touching description of a young couple's first year together in London, but it is also a homage - something rare in fiction - to happy married life. (It therefore makes an excellent wedding or anniversary present.) Ian and Felicity Foster are shown as they arrive at 23 Greenery Street, an undisguised and still unchanged Walpole Street in Chelsea. Their uneventful but always interesting everyday life is the main subject of a novel that evokes the charmingly contented and timeless while managing to be both funny and profound about human relations. They struggle with their neighbours (who borrow without asking, and fail to return, first a step-ladder, then a fish-kettle and finally, the fruit-knives) and negotiate 'the chasm which separates the sexes'; financial crises ('Horrible, loathsome money, why must it come and spoil everything like this?'), Grandmamma's pearls ('They're the most hideous things you've ever seen in your life') and the acceptance of clandestine affairs ('Marriage isn't all jam, you know') serve to strength the bonds of their marriage. Denis Mackail was a grandson of Edward Burne-Jones on his mother's side and son of JW Mackail, the eminent classical scholar; his sister was the novelist Angela Thirkell. He wrote nearly a book a year for thirty years. Also available as a Persephone e-book. Endpaper There was no question about the endpaper fabric for Greenery Street - it had to be something that the Fosters would have had in their house. This 1925 cretonne is, we believe, exactly what Felicity might have bought at 'Andrew Brown's' (Peter Jones) and used to cover the sofa. Picture Caption Original jacket © Estate of E.H Shepard; a postcard reproduction accompanies each copy of the book. Show more