Elizabeth Jenkins (2): The Tortoise and the Hare

We’ve just had the early spring Bank Holiday weekend here, and I’ve been making the most of a short break on the lovely North Antrim coast (yesterday I sent some of you an ‘email postcard’ with this seaside snap of me above. I meant to send it to you all – so here it is again, in case you missed it).

This week’s post introduces the opening chapters of Elizabeth Jenkins’s most famous novel, The Tortoise and the Hare (1954). It’s the latest episode in my 20th-century book club series: literary posts for paid subscribers about mid-century British and Irish novels by women writers. You can find my introduction to Elizabeth Jenkins’s life and work in Part 1 below (with no spoilers about the ending just yet, in case you’d like to catch up with us before Part 3).

Elizabeth Jenkins is still not as well known as other early/mid-century English/Irish writers called Elizabeth: Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Jane Howard or Elizabeth Taylor, but I think that she should be. As Henry Oliver says here, a proper biography of her is long overdue, as well as reissues of many of her other novels (‘What are the publishers waiting for?’). I hope this post will begin to explain what’s so great about her, and I would love to hear your thoughts.