After reading Stevenson's lovely but lesser-known 'The Four Graces', I have to say I didn't find this novel as good. Miss Barbara Buncle is a spinster living with her once-nanny-then maid, now maid-housekeeper-cook Dorcas in Silverstream. Of note, the lesbian couple who are clearly stated as such, accepted and liked by everyone in the village except the bad guys, and given a very cheery HEA. I stayed up until 1 am reading this one because I couldn't stand to put it down, not because it was so gripping but because it was so irresistibly funny and I had to know what was going to become of all of them. This descendant of Robert Louis Stevenson has the same cunning skill in constructing characters by the use of dialogue and action.

Dies ist ein Buch einer zu ihrer Zeit (erste Hälfte des vorigen Jahrhunderts) sehr erfolgreichen Schriftstellerin, die über lange Jahre nicht mehr gedruckt wurde und deren Bücher nur zu saftigen Sammlerpreisen antiquarisch zu bekommen waren. Her money is drying up—as it is for many of her neighbors—and she has written a novel to rescue herself from poverty. Pour your tea and settle in because, from the opening pages, you'll be drawn into this small village, set somewhere in England, sometime between the wars. As an aside, noting the different strategies pursued by the various characters to deal with money issues provides an excellent guide to the ethics D. Just a reminder that the 'historical accuracy demands that queerness always equals doom' crowd are factually wrong as well as jerks.

Miss Buncle is a bit of a Wise Fool, so of course she has written about what she knows: all the people in the village. Each character is introduced and then we learn more and more about them from their fellow villagers and from their own actions and statements. Perhaps had Barbara used a bit more imagination her neighbors might not have realized the people's names had been changed.

It's the literary equivalent of a nice cup of tea and a sit down - just what you want after a hard day at work. Dorothy Emily Stevenson, escritora y novelista, publicó en 1934 el primer tomo de la trilogía de Barbara Buncle «El libro de la señorita Buncle». Realizing that she must do something to bring in more income she briefly considers keeping hens or taking in boarders but neither seem very appealing.

Filled with delightful characters that had me snickering at times and laughing out loud at other times. Funny, charming, and insightful, this novel reveals what happens when people see themselves through someone else's eyes. If you find honest characterizations and interesting people depicted with both love and accuracy, you'll find entre into the book .