GREEN DOLPHIN STREET

by Eliabeth Geudge ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 1944

I've been an Eliabeth Goudge fan ever since I read Island Magic. She's had her ups and downs, both from the critical and the commercial angles. This -- I think -- belongs with the ""ups"". A period novel with unusual settings, -- first the Channel Islands, of which she writes glowingly; second New Zealand of the mid-Victorian period, still a frontier, still harried by race conflict with the native Maoris -- Green Delphin Street is a psychological novel of two women and a man, a triangle of love and jealousy, of possession and self-abnegation. At her best in handling children, Miss Goudge starts her story when Marianne and Marguerite are little girls, Marianne, staid, intelligent, assured beyond her years, Marguerite, irresponsible and winning and outgoing. Into their sheltered Island life comes William and his father --Marianne marks him down for her own, determinedly sets out to make him what she thinks he can be! Marguerite and William instinctively know they belong to each other. But Marianne -- and William's carelessness -- determine otherwise, and it is Marianne who goes to him in New ealand, who becomes a model frontier wife and mother of Veronique, and who learns -- only in old age when they come back to the Island, that it was Marguerite he had sent for. The story holds the interest, but it is in the loving picture of the Island, and the revealing picture of pioneer life in New Zealand that the book is significant and original. There is virtually none of the fey quality of some of her writing -- which may widen her market. Good escape reading for today.

Pub Date: Aug. 28, 1944

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1944

Categories: FICTION