More pictures to match up!

More pictures to match up with books!

 

I will be away for the next 10 days: no new posts.

Last time I went away I cheekily set my lovely readers to work: I published a few of the pictures I had tucked away in my files, so far unused on the blog, and asked them to suggest books  to suit. This was such a success, that – as I am away again – I am going to try the experiment again.

I have a file called Looking for the Right Book – general illos that I loved enough to save, but was not sure where to use them. So here are a few of them. Please tell me in the comments if you can think of a great book to go with. Thank you, and see you back here soon.

[Special note for blogfriend Shay, if she's reading: one of these pics I thought on rediscovering 'Bet Shay will say she has made, or would make, this, OR she will have the perfect book]













Comments

  1. I love the fact that you save these, Moira! Even if they don't end up matching a book, they're great. Have a safe trip!

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    1. Thanks Margot - I had a great time, and see a lot of great suggestions below

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  2. Hmm. The last one calls out Mitfords to me. Not a specific book., but perhaps Diana, Nancy and Pam meet in town for lunch and a matinee.
    Susan D

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    1. I was thinking some of Harriet Vane's friends (a bit lower on the social ladder, though, so you may be right, especially given the leopard coat).

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    2. Those look like wartime clothes which means Diana probably wouldn't make it to lunch, what with being in prison and all ...

      Sovay

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    3. Thanks all - I will give due consideration to whether Mitford of Sayers women are best!

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    4. Linda, Louisa and Fanny on a rare wartime jaunt to London perhaps – though I’m not sure which of them would be wearing the siren suit. Uncle Matthew would have six fits at the idea of any female even vaguely associated with him wearing trousers.

      Sovay

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    5. Though having said that, he’d probably let the Bolter get away with it. Could that be her in the Beach Bloomers???

      Sovay

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    6. I wouldn't be surprised. "She wore trousers with the air of one still flouting the conventions, ignorant that every suburban shopgirl was doing the same."

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  3. The second one reminds me of Lost Lorrenden by Mabel Esther Allan. Heroine obsessed by painting of outdoor dining at country home.

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    1. That sounds most intriguing - I've recently read a different MEA book, blogpost coming. But the one you mention seems to be very rare and very expensive!

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  4. I confess to a pair of beach pajamas but Lord -- that was a long time ago!

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    1. I suppose 'lounge wear' has taken their place.

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    2. I didn't mean that you were in lounge wear Shay, but generally!

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    3. Tee hee. Now, did you make your beach pyjamas/pajamas Shay?

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  5. The first picture is probably American, but it looks like a setting from one of Marjorie Allingham’s London books.

    Nerys

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    1. For som reason my first thought was Dorothy Sayers, so we are obviously thinking along the same lines,

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    2. Good calls - there was an Allignham involving circus characters in the street.
      And DLS did like a harlequin etc.

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  6. The woman in red seems to be ice skating which reminds me of a Mrs Olyphant book, but the time period is wrong. And Little Women of course, but again, wrong time period and Amy probably wouldn't be wearing red (except maybe long johns).

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    1. Which Mrs O book has skating? I do love all skating pics, and have collected a few over the years.
      That one needs someone really smart and probably rich...

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    2. I wish I could remember which book had the skating scene! When I thought about it, I realized it might have been Trollope, maybe in one of his standalone books. Oh well, guess I'll have to read them all over again.

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    3. Yes you will! And then let me know. Always report skating scenes to me anyway, please....😊
       

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    4. I've found it, at the beginning of Chapter VI of Mrs Oliphant's "Brownlows" (thank goodness for ctrl-F). I also found through my BFF Google some other references, which you may already know about, mainly Jane Austen's letters and "Anna Karenina': https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/09/ten-of-the-best
      and also a discussion of social views of women skating://www.jimandellen.org/trollope/lastchronicle.7-11.html

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    5. Ooh excellent thank you, I will definitely follow up!

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  7. The high-class-outerwear ladies might be from one of Elizabeth Daly's mysteries, which sometimes were set among the upper crust of NYC.

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    1. Oh yes, always keen on the brownstone mysteries and those women venturing forth down the steps to get involved in crime and intrigues.

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  8. Christine Harding8 September 2025 at 16:24

    I will think of some books, but I am intrigued by the advert on the side of the building in the first photo…. Free instruction in domestic economy! I wonder what constituted domestic economy when this was taken!

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    1. It looks like part of a well-meant (but potentially quite patronising) Depression-era campaign to help the families of the unemployed make their Welfare payments go further.

      Sovay

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    2. I think domestic economy was an earlier name for what we used to call home economics. The Syracuse organization and others like it were older than the Depression, based on legislation from early in the century. They seemed to be an effort to improve quality of life through information and demonstrations. An article on archive.org went into some detail about the home bureaus, including this about Syracuse:
      "...In Syracuse, N. Y., the home bureau organization in 1924 was cooperating with 27 other organized agencies in its work for better homes. The Syracuse Home Bureau Association is a branch of the Onondaga County Farm and Home Bureau Association and is connected with the State college of agriculture. The executive committee is elected by members of the association, and has headquarters at the thrift kitchen, where the food and clothing laboratories are maintained."
      Website is https://ia801902.us.archive.org/2/items/homedemonstratio43ward/homedemonstratio43ward.pdf

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    3. Speaking of domestic matters, I was surprised at the ladies doing their housework in those "wrap" garments and stiletto heels!

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    4. What an interesting article - thanks for the link! They seem to have similar aims to the Women's Institute in Britain, but on a far larger and more professional scale.

      I too was surprised by the trousered overalls for housework - I suspect this pattern is from the US and didn't make it across the Atlantic in the 1930s. Can't see the UK servant-employing classes putting up with such garments on their housemaids, or even their daily cleaning women, and I'm not sure that women who did their own housework would have taken the leap into trousers either - my working-class grandmother and great-grandmother never wore them.

      Sovay

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    5. Yes, all very interesting, thanks for these. and yes, American - I think the English would have been uncomfortable with the idea of high heels fo housework.
      Cornell University also had a a strong home economics department n the first part of the 20th century, with a clothing and textile division. The archives has some nice pictures which I have used quite often.
      I'm betting not many people wore the trouser overalls...

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    6. I'm betting not many people wore those heels to do housework! Maybe people in '50's sitcoms....

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    7. I'm reminded of a contestant in "The Great British Sewing Bee" a year or two ago, who wore stilettoes at her sewing machine whilst everyone else was in Crocs or fluffy slippers ...

      Sovay

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    8. Marty: Mary Tyler Moore in the Dick Van Dyke show?
      Sovay: Hilarious! I'm sure I noticed at the time. I love the way so many of them change into their sewing slippers.

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    9. I think MTM wore flats or very low heels, on account of being fairly tall. I don't actually remember most 50's shows, but have a memory of moms dressed very nicely, sometimes including pearls!

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    10. Yes I was trying to picture MTM's feet and failing. Pearls very much a given I think

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  9. No appropriate book coming to mind yet but the Thirties beach pyjama pic is intriguing; the bell-bottomed style is very familiar but I've never come across anything like the barrel-shaped ones that gather at the ankles.

    Sovay

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    1. The barrel-shaped style looks as if it had air pumped into it, it's so billowing.

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    2. I wonder if they are a nod to harem pants? In one of Anne Scott-James 30s-set memoirs a friend wears something that sounds like that.
      And I can't resist mentioning Mary Norton's The Borrowers, in which'Homily had made [Arietty] a small pair of Turkish bloomers from two glove fingers for “knocking about in the mornings.”'

      I think we should all start having wardrobe items specifically designed for knocking about in the mornings.

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    3. Kid (presumably) bloomers must have been very hard-wearing! I'm now curious about what Arietty did in the afternoons, and what costume it required.

      Sovay

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    4. We're gonna have to re-read the book....
      Finding a picture for Arietty was a fearsome prospect, but I was very happy with this one, where size isnt clear...

      https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2012/11/gloves-for-bloomers.html

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  10. Pic 5 - the girl in the (presumably 1950s?) yellow strapless dress - the atmosphere of the painting brought to mind Rosamond Lehmann's "Invitation to the Waltz" even though the clothing details aren't right.

    Sovay

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    1. Yes I absolutely see what you mean, she does have a look at Olivia getting ready. When I did posts on Lehmann recently I was astonished to find I'd never blogged on Waltz.

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  11. I think the two outfits on the left of the sixth picture are very Agatha Christie - Peril at End House, Triangle at Rhodes, or Evil Under the Sun perhaps.

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  12. That was me.

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  13. Poirot "Evil under the sun" for second last pic

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  14. And "The Field systers" from Dorothy Whipple for last pic

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    1. Is that 'They were Sisters'? which I read a long time ago and don't really remember. I am always surprised that I haven't done any Whipple books on the blog - because I read them pre-blog. I should put that right.

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  15. I've just been recommended Few Eggs and No Oranges: Vere Hodgson's Diary, 1940-45, which would suit the bottom picture. Warm but chic clothes for the shelter or basement?

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    1. That sounds like an excellent suggestion. I also thought of Persephone’s collection of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s wartime stories, “English Climate”.

      The figure on the right is sending out slightly mixed messages: sturdy thick-soled shoes, siren suit, heavyweight overcoat – and then the dinky little blue hat …

      Sovay

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    2. Nice ideas! Keeping wam in wartime is a good theme, and this is an ideal picture. Yes that hat isn't going to prevent much heat loss - but good for her!

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  16. The yellow dress: If Matthew Bourne made a ballet of A La Recherche and set it in the 1950s....Odette?

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  17. 5th picture is Gloria dolling up for SPOILER AHEAD her sister's gambling den END OF THE SPOILER in Nada (Carmen Laforet, 1945) even though a) Gloria is a redhead. Let's blame the lighting and b) the bodice is very fifties to me but I still see Gloria.

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    1. I don't know this at all, but will look up.
      It is a wonderful picture isn't it? you reading sounds good...

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