Maisie Dobbs General Reading LIst

See the previous post for the introduction--here's the list. I relied on reviews to choose the books so let me know if a book is not a good choice. A reading list for The Mapping of Love and Death is coming soon!

World War I (General)

Arthur, Max. The Faces of World War I. London: Cassell Illustrated, 2007. Print. ISBN-13  9781844035618

The author's goal was to show "the enduring spirit of the solder and civilian...", so this book emphasizes the heroic rather than the horrific and is known for its excellent photographs.

Lewis, Jon E. The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War I. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003. Print. ISBN-10: 9780786712885

Eyewitness accounts arranged chronologically.

Meyer, G. J. A World Undone: the Story of the Great War, 1914-1918. New York, NY: Bantam Dell, 2007. Print. ISBN-10: 9780553382402

Another good basic overview.

World War I: The Great War. New York, NY: A & E Television Networks, 2008.

Aired on the History Channel.


World War I (Medical)

Barham, Peter. Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2007. Print. ISBN-10: 9780300125115

Reviews suggest that this is well-researched, but not as well-written (stylistically) as Shell Shocked by Peter Leese. However, if you are buying the books, it only costs about $30 and the Leese book is about $80.

Higonnet, Margaret R., Motte Ellen Newbold La, and Mary Borden. Nurses at the Front: Writing the Wounds of the Great War. Boston, MA: Northeastern UP, 2001. Print. ISBN-10: 1555534848

Combines the stories of two American nursed who wrote about their experiences in WWI. LaMotte's original book, written in 1916, was censored at the time. It is hard to find memoirs written by British nurses that are available in America.

Lee, Janet. War Girls: the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in the First World War. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2005. Print. ISBN-10: 0719067138

The FANYs worked as nurses and ambulance drivers. This is out of print but is held at a lot of American universities.

Leese, Peter. Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Print. ISBN-10: 9780333969267

Considered the first exhaustive academic work on Shell Shock. This may be hard to find in a public library, since it is more of a university book.


Linker, Beth. War's Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2011. Print. ISBN-10: 0226482537


Available June, 2011. Subject is rehabilitation of soldiers in America after WWI but will probably be similar to Great Britain. This is a serious academic work.

Policing

Heidensohn, Frances. Women in Control?: the Role of Women in Law Enforcement. Oxford [England: Clarendon, 1992. Print. ISBN-10: 0198252552

Discusses women in police careers in Great Britain and America. I could not find much history specifically on police women in Great Britain (as opposed to a lot on American police women).


Changes in British Society

I think the original Upstairs, Downstairs (shown in America on PBS in the 1970s), set from 1903 to 1930 would be a fascinating (fictional) resource and the recent show set in 1936 may give a glimpse of Maisie’s future life in Great Britain.


Do you have more suggestions or do you disagree with these choices?  Let me know in the comments!

Maisie Dobbs (WWI) Reading LIst: Introduction

I began reading the Maisie Dobbs mystery series when the first volume came out in 2003 and I kept up pretty faithfully through the fourth novel.  The series follows Maisie, a young woman who began as a servant for a wealthy family in London, yet was educated at Cambridge and later served as a nurse in WWI.  Although most of the stories are set after World War I, the war is usually a pivotal event in unraveling the mystery.  Here is the author's web site:  http://www.jacquelinewinspear.com/maisie-dobbs.php

Recently @BookClubGirl on Twitter began tweeting about Maisie and  I found my way to her blog. I know I am not alone in my lack of education about WWI and the decade after--a commenter said, "Someone should make a reading list", and the rest is history, (or geography, as Terry Pratchett would say.

Here is the general Maisie Dobbs Background Reading List--and yes, I am a nerdy librarian who is interested in almost everything. I have made a basic Maisie list because some of the history and themes crop up in each book, so far.   I tried to choose books that I thought would be somewhat easily available and I mentioned when they might be a little more difficult.  If you really want a title and are having trouble finding it, go to your library (public, college, or whatever) and ask if they can get it for you from interlibrary loan.  You can also go to http://www.worldcat.org/ and find out whether a library close to you has a copy.  Well, this intro is so long I think I will actually put the list in the next post to break it up.