Sometimes she wished she could stick up a large notice saying: ‘FOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT TOO MANY’ . . .
Raising four young children on her own in the years of postwar rationing, widowed Dinah tends to be the subject of sympathetic murmurs. But though she has little money, is perpetually tired, and remains haunted by unresolved issues from her troubled marriage, Dinah rejects all offers of pity. When her twin brother Dan returns from the military, he sends her and the children on holiday among the scenes of their childhood, staying with their unflappable Nannie at Craigie Lodge, their old family home, in a beautiful coastal town in Scotland. There, amidst happy memories, old friends, and new acquaintances, Dinah and her brood weather delightful adventures, awkward misunderstandings, and, perhaps, the tentative beginnings of new romance.
First published in 1949, Young Mrs. Savage is a charming holiday story, a perceptive tale of overcoming past unhappiness to make a fresh start, and one of D.E. Stevenson’s most irresistible novels. This new edition includes an autobiographical sketch by the author.
‘Miss Stevenson has her own individual and charming way of seeing things.’ Western Mail
A propos de l’auteur
Born in Edinburgh in 1892, Dorothy Emily Stevenson came from a distinguished Scottish family, her father being David Alan Stevenson, the lighthouse engineer, first cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson.In 1916 she married Major James Reid Peploe (nephew to the artist Samuel Peploe). After the First World War they lived near Glasgow and brought up two sons and a daughter. Dorothy wrote her first novel in the 1920’s, and by the 1930’s was a prolific bestseller, ultimately selling more than seven million books in her career. Among her many bestselling novels was the series featuring the popular ‘Mrs. Tim’, the wife of a British Army officer. The author often returned to Scotland and Scottish themes in her romantic, witty and well-observed novels.During the Second World War Dorothy Stevenson moved with her husband to Moffat in Scotland. It was here that most of her subsequent works were written. D.E. Stevenson died in Moffat in 1973.