Mabel Barnes-Grundy

Originally published by The Baker & Taylor Co., 1906. (from review in Los Angeles Heral, 8 April 1906) "Hazel of Heatherland by Mabel Barnes-Grundy, is a charming picture of the wayward, humorous Hazel, of her struggles against the domineering sister Angela and the daughter-ridden mother, of Sammy the gardener and Mr. Inderwick, and of a dozen others who form the background for Hazel. From the moment that quaint old Sammy appears, with his eye ever out for himself and Hazel, through the vacillations of Hazel's love affairs and the humorously wrought pictures of this rural English life among the middle-class folk of the Dee country, the story is one of unflagging interest.

[excerpted from NYT review, 8 March 1914]

Patricia is much courted for her fortune, so, wrestling an unwilling consent from her aunt and cousin, she runs away from her English estate to an obscure little pension in Mentone, and tries to fill the role of a young person of very limited means. Lo! she meets a distinguished artist, who, nauseated by adulation, has run away from his fame and is traveling incog. What more natural? But by no means is all plain sailing...

[from Daily Telegraph ad 24 Sep 1920]

A girl of good family unable to find a congenial job sends a daring advertisement to a London paper offering "A Girl for Sale." How she is "bought" by a shy, retiring man makes an entertaining story which ends happily, as all good stories should.

[from 'Hutchinson's New Novels' pages at back of book] In "The Great Husband Hunt," Mrs. Barnes-Grundy introduces us to a delightful elderly and impecunious bachelor uncle who has shared his home in Devonshire with four nice and interesting orphan nieces, but who have been denied the gift of beauty. Unexpectedly inheriting a fortune, he offers a thousand pounds down to the first of the four who is engaged to be married within a prescribed time and a handsome dowry when the marriage is solemnised. How the four accept the challenge and set forth in quest of husbands makes a most amusing tale.

[pasted into inner cover] The witty pen of Mabel Barnes-Grundy is certain cure for "the blues." When Penelope Dingle, aged 40, finally lost patience with her scientifically and worm-absorbed sexagenarian husband, Adam, she found a ready sympathiser in Sylvia Wayne, the exasperated 25-year-old fiancee of the shell-shocked John Elverstone. They run away to Switzerland, but, after a bout each of 'flu, following upon suppressed boredom, they return home ready to forget and forgive. But they find a changed Adam and John, who -- made fit by strenuous diet and exercise -- are rushing from one "The Dansant" to another. Appalled, Penelope and Sylvia find they cannot "go the pace," and suspecting that Adam is longing for his worms, and John for his peaceful evenings, they agree to surrender what they believe to be a plot by a touching appeal for "quiet." Not until they reach the privacy of Penelope's boudoir do they smile at one another and murmur "Dear Lambs!" while downstairs Adam and John are gleefully assuring one another:" "They haven't a suspicion."

Sally Blake, 30 years old and single, wins fifteen thousand pounds in the Irish Sweep and shocks her much older parents and sisters by declaring her intentions of leaving their uncongenial company, moving to London, and living independently. "Sally in a Service Flat" follows her adventures establishing her own household while trying to resist the blandishments of her best friend and would-be fiance, Bobbie, a handsome, charming chartered accountant. "The Saturday Review" (7 Jul 1934) listed it as one of Hutchinson's three "admirable new books" and described it as "a highly diverting comedy with an element of pathos, all in the true Barnes-Grundy vein."

[from brief description on flyleaf]

Suzanne, the heroine of Mabel Barnes-Grudy's novel, does not hold or besiege a city, nor a man's heart -- it is a case of him besieging hers. Her strategy is directed along much more unusual lines, to wit, holding up the sale of an old house and garden.

Why she does this, and how she achieves it, the reader will find out for himself by perusing this amusing story.

[from review in The Courier-Journal (Louisville Kentucky), Sat Jan 13, 1912]

The Third Miss Wenderby is introduced to the reader at the age of seven, at which tender period she is described as having been the victim of an acute religious mania which manifested itself in a desire to commit some heinous sin in order to be a proper subject for divine redemption. The earlier pages of the book are more than ordinarily interesting in their description of the doings of the little "Diana," but the later adventures of that young lady do not make any very strong appeal either to the emotions or the imagination. Following the plan of an infinite number of novels of this class, the story is that of a well-to-do family suddenly impoverished, the daughter seeking that ever-ready refuge of the young English gentlewoman, and becoming a governess. The fact that she cannot even solve a simple problem in long division does not seem to be a deterrent. Most of the women, except the heroine, are more or less peevish and objectionable, with interesting husbands and other male relatives whom they do not understand. As Diana has a "God-given faculty of understanding men," she proves a valuable addition to society in various phases. She falls in love with the wrong man, but his perfidy is discovered in time to prevent her from being made permanently unhappy, and, in the end, of course she marries the long-suffering and persistent lover of her childhood days. It is eminently a book for "the young person" -- unless those specimens of humanity have ceased to exist.

[from review in The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser, Sat, Jan 2, 1915] The many admirers of the author of "The Third Miss Wenderby" will turn with delight to her new book. And they will not be disappointed, although we cannot promise that they will meet in these pages anybody quite so delightful as the delicious and audacious Diana Wenderby. Nevertheless Candytuft, Mrs. Barnes-Grundy's latest heroine is an exceedingly charming young woman, full of unconventionality and with a downrightness of character which is delightful. She never by any chance calls a spade an agricultural implement. Candytuft, on account of her parents -- themselves a charming couple -- allowing her name to degenerate into "Candy" or Tufty" for short, changes it on her seventeenth birthday to Veronica, and thenceforth insists upon that appellation. She has to fight for the name, as she has to fight for many things, including her own happiness. She is blessed, or the reverse, with an artistic temperament, which after her marriage threatens to bring shipwreck to the happiness both of herself and her husband, whom she dearly loves without fully realising the fact. They are saved, however, by one Tony Westerton, who by practising an elaborate hoax on Veronica disgusts her with him and teaches her to love and appreciate her own nice husband. The tale is told with rare artistry, and many amusing and real live characters are introduced. Mrs. Barnes-Grundy is a mistress of the art of rendering conversation naturally, and her pages sparkle with flashes of wit and shrewd observation. This is eminently a book to be read, and even in these times we predict for it a large company of readers.

[from review in The Cincinnati Enquirer, Mon, Oct 5, 1908]. Hilary, a clever and original English girl, living in a quiet country house in Derbyshire, and having nothing much to do, grows weary of her somewhat monotonous existence and decides that "to be penned up with one's family, however virtuous that family may be, is not for the good of one's soul." One day she explodes a bomb-shell in the family circle by announcing that she is going to London to earn her own living, a thing that no member of that highly respectable establishment has ever been required to do. That she does not find it altogether a primrose path goes without saying but she wins her way, and we knew she would, and does not regret her experiment. The book, which is especially a book intended for girls, is very brightly and pleasantly written.