Bring Out Your Jumble, and your Literary Jumble Sales
Now here’s a post that’s been long-promised and a long-time-coming. Given that we do a lot of mid-20th century fiction here on the blog,
jumble sales do pop up, and every time there is interest below the line. See
particularly the
comments here – the main book is a slick sophisticated NY-based crime story, but
that didn’t stop us getting into jumble sales. (The connection – obviously –
was harlequin eyeglasses)
I’ve been throwing mentions and ideas into a file, but when
I took a look (‘is it time yet?’) there are already too many items. Have they
been multiplying themselves in the Word file? Why are there so many great
pictures? I just don’t know. And I’ve got so much to say before we even get to
the books…
Does everyone know what it is: a fund-raiser (and re-use
opportunity) whereby everyone gives in items they don’t need any more, and
everything is sold for some charitable purpose. Sometimes it is one stall as
part of a bazaar or fete offering many other things (bazaars and fetes are much
more upmarket then a jumble sale), sometimes it’s an event that takes over the
whole village hall, with the items very carefully sorted and priced, with
different tables for menswear, womens’, and the terrifying bric-a-brac.
Sometimes it was known as a rummage sale, sounding even more low-rent.
I think they pretty much don’t exist any more – what with
charity shops and Vinted – certainly not the big ones, though church fetes will
still have a stall. I can identify one moment in the late 1980s where a cause
dear to my heart held a jumble sale. Five people worked very hard, collected, arranged
it, ran it. They took in (all profit!) £25 and agreed that they’d all rather
have sat at home and done nothing and donated £5 each. I would say that bookmarks a
turning point in the economics.
But they have a place in our hearts and minds and books. TV comedian
Victoria Wood did a wonderful WI jumble sale sketch, but otherwise I don’t
think they made it onscreen much.
One of the best descriptions of a
charity fete, in wartime, comes from – of all people – Graham Greene, in his
1943 book Ministry of Fear. Blogfriend Roger Allen – and who else would it have
been? – pointed this out, and it is actually going to have its own entry, so we’ll
move on to more predictable sources.
The books that kicked all this off, see above, were Miss Read’s
Fairacre Chronicles - village life in Oxfordshire in the 1950s and
1960s - the natural home of jumble sales. Summer at Fairacre has a
chapter called ‘Public Duties’ with a blissful, detailed description of a WI jumble
sale, and a lovely line drawing.
Then there’s Barbara Pym books: wherever there’s
a vicar there’s a jumble sale, said one of my readers. I will stick to the posthumous
work, An Academic Question, and this wonderful quote:
I was sure that I had seen the black velvet bridge coat she wore among some of her ‘good’ jumble. It may even have come from the dead wife of one of Dolly’s old lovers.
--linking up as it does with last year’s blog obsession,
the bridge coat, and being about the most Pym line possible. More in this
post.
The
Provincial Lady, of course, helps with the jumble stall at the
fete – here she is doing pricing:
Find that my views are not
always similar to those of other members of Committee. Why, for instance, only
three-and-sixpence for grey georgette only sacrificed reluctantly at eleventh
hour from my wardrobe? Arrival of Cissie Crabbe (wearing curious wool hat which
I at once feel would look better on Jumble Stall).
There is mention of ‘going round asking’, whereby village
worthies knock on doors to ask for suitable jumble. I feel sure that Miss
Marple did this as part of an investigation – excuse for nosiness - but can’t
track down the reference.
Of course Agatha Christie had many local fetes in
her works, all surely with white elephant stalls - Dead Man’s Folly &The
Mirror Crack’d, with murders at the fetes, Postern of Fate (Tuppence
organizes the curio stall and provides a brass lamp), The Pale Horse –
accusations of cheating, and a pig to be won. (All Christie books have posts – find the list
here).
[I was intrigued to find there is an edition called Agatha
Christie’s 1960s Omnibus – the rogue thought from the darkside is ‘what a good
way to avoid her worst ones by throwing it in the bin’, though it does contain Endless
Night, an outlier.]
The weapon in Mrs McGinty’s Dead – a sugar cutter or sugar hammer – gets passed around the village by means of the Vicarage Bring and Buy Sale.
Important blogfriend Sovay had this excellent
contribution (not her only one):
"Mapp and Lucia".
The prominent citizens of Tilling are all holidaying in each other's houses
(like an early version of Air BnB) while Lucia rents Mallards from Miss Mapp,
and Lucia decides to give a charitable garden fete at Mallards, much to Miss
Mapp's resentment. So she in turn plans a jumble sale in Diva's house and gets
back at Lucia via Georgie by including a painting he gave her among the jumble
- she puts it in the sixpenny odds-and-ends box, and he spots it there and buys
it back, and the repercussions go on for months.
And
another regular, callmemadam, offered this niche appearance:
The first example that came to
mind is in Monica Edwards' Wish for a Pony (1947), a children's book. The
heroine, Tamzin, takes some items to a jumble sale for her mother and sees a
pair of jodhpurs in her size. They are 5/-, quite a lot then for a jumble sale.
Her mother says, absolutely not, until she finds that they've come from 'a good
home' and they must be dry cleaned before Tam wears them.
I have not exhausted my list of mentions and I’m quite sure that readers will be able to add more, even (especially?) those who have already contributed. And - these are all British examples. Can we hear from overseas readers what the story is in other countries? Bring them on.
The Clothes in Books comments do not disappoint….
Top picture is Norman Blamey, Parish Bazaar.
File:Brooklyn Museum 1998.12.4 Sugar Hammer.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
File:Pontesbury
Church jumble sale (1497978).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}
"I feel sure that Miss Marple did this as part of an investigation – excuse for nosiness - but can’t track down the reference." She did that in the movie "Murder most foul"
ReplyDeleteOh thanks - I wouldn't have remembered that. I feel sure it's in a book somewhere too
DeleteElizabeth Taylor's In A Summer Season has one. The heroine's daughter has a crush on the curate, who lives in miserable lodgings and is heavily involved in the jumble sale.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see a mention of a bridge coat :-)
I haven't read that one but am going to have to
DeleteAs soon as I saw the title, Moira, I thought of Mrs. McGinty's Dead. The first time I read that one, in my teens, was my introduction to the jumble sale. And it works quite well in that book. It's a great backdrop for a part of a novel (or even a short story), if you think about it. Lots of history in the items, different personalities mixing, etc.. And what a reflection of the social culture.
ReplyDeleteIt's always stuck in my mind too, Margot - more than her other fetes and sales! There was something about the idea it was hiding in plain sight - sitting on a stall, being looked at and picked up. And then being sent back to the next sale. It's many years since I first read it, and I've read it many times, and it still gives me the authentic frisson. Same for you by the sound of things!
DeleteSuch a good way of ensuring plenty of overlapping irrelevant fingerprints, post-murder!
DeleteSovay
Exactly! and what a way to get rid of the weapon. And - everyone knows the item, they are just rather vague about which sales it went to
DeleteWhat an excellent topic for a grey morning! We still have Church Bazaars in this soggy corner of England that my friend calls L' Angleterre Profonde. Hence my signed Eleanor Farjeon (40p) and my beautiful antique engraving of Matlock Bath before the tourists found it, in its gorgeous oak frame (£1).
ReplyDeleteRichmal Crompton's Just William was my first thought, because of course his dog is Jumble, and there is a perfect jumble sale chapter in William the Outlaw: William and the White Elephants. Oh, it's lovely. From the very beginning when William is enchanted to help with the White Elephant stall ( he tells the Outlaws they are just like black ones, only white, being of the polar variety) all through accidentally selling someone's hastily put down coat for a shilling.. I could pick out quote after quote but really the best thing to do would be to read the whole thing - they are all on Project Gutenberg these days.
Look, I have found it for you. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70736/pg70736-images.html#c4
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, fantastic! I will go and read. Sounds fabulous
DeleteAmericans hold Rummage Sales, Yard Sales or Garage Sales (sometimes when moving or just to have a cleanout) but I always think Jumble Sales sound more fun (and more likely to yield treasures). I feel like a "Rummage Sale" is more likely to be held at a church or nonprofit, although my brother's school used to have an amazing "Giant Yard Sale' in its gym. There are a LOT of "how to" books on the subject and a few mysteries that I can think of (more I can't think of). Hallie Ephron (sister of Nora) has a book called Never Tell a Lie in which the main characters hold a yard sale and an acquaintance turns up and gets murdered (I read this a while ago but liked it). Shelly Harris wrote a cozy series I have seen but not read in which every book involves a Garage Sale. There is also Suzi Weinert, a yard sale/thrift shop fan whose book, Garage Sale Stalker, was turned into a series on Hallmark. Pretty amazing to have one's first book published at 75!
ReplyDeleteOh yes Constance, of course - yard sales! I remember the first time I was introduced to them when visiting family in Boston.
DeleteWell done for finding books featuring them - they must be a good setting.
In the UK we have carboot sales - (boot = US trunk ), held in a large carark where people drive in and set up a stall out of the back of their car, like tailgaing I suppose.
These have become so much a part of life that sometimes you see signs on the road saying 'Giant Boot here on Sunday' which I always think would be confusing to someone not in the know.
I think the US equivalent to the car boot sale is the flea market. Some of these are well -established and have regular stalls and stall-holders, but others are much more DIY.
DeleteBoot sales reminded me of Trunk or Treat events at Halloween, when kids visit cars specially gathered in one place and with treats in their trunks, instead of going from house to house. I think it's a relatively recent development.
DeleteDame E: that does sound similar.
DeleteMarty - never heard of Trunk or Treat, how interesting. Does it reduce the magice or is it a really safe efficient way to do it....? I would have missed the excitement of accompanying my children house to house, never knowing what the next door would bring
I think it's a safety thing. The "never knowing what the next door will bring" has somehow taken on a sinister meaning. Sad reflection on our times.
DeleteI was realizing that when I was writing that sentence. It is sad. I thought the worst that could happen would be a polite unwillingness to participate
DeleteI think it should have been a legal requirement that there should be a jumble sale in every Barbara Pym novel. I love the one in Excellent Women. When the doors open: '"'Talk about landing on the Normandy beaches,' said Sister Blatt, 'some of our jumble sale crowd would make splendid Commandos'" and at the end are left 'an old velvet jacket trimmed with moth-eaten white rabbit, a soiled pink georgette evening dress of the nineteen-twenties trimmed with bead embroidery, a mangy fur with mad staring eyes priced at sixpence - these were "regulars" and no-one ever bought them.'
ReplyDeletewonderful! Oh she had an eye didn't she?
DeleteI think my favorite is the one in No Fond Return of Love where Dulcie buys a kitschy little tchochke so she'll have an excuse to talk to Aylwin Forbes's estranged wife.
Delete'a kitschy little tchochke' is my favourite phrase of the week. I could imagine it in a Tom Lehrer song.
DeleteMention of the “regulars” brings back memories - for years I helped out with the bookstall at the annual gala of a canal charity, which inter alia involved lugging boxes of unsaleable regulars (Readers’ Digest condensed editions and multiple copies of the kind of books that appeared in CiB’s Books That Were on Every Shelf post) down three flights of stairs to the canal bank, and then lugging them all back up again at the end of the day. I resisted the temptation to kick a box or two into the canal.
DeleteThere’s an Irish wartime (or “Emergency” time) variation in Sheila Pim’s Common or Garden Crime - one of the POV character’s neighbours has held a “Bring a Book and Buy a Book” event for charity, which raises the question of who may have bought the book on poisonous plants …
Sovay
Oops - forgot the
Delete... end italics code ...
DeleteSovay
Love the story of the canal sale - no good deed goes unpunished. And so familiar to any of us who read and who take part in community activities and visit charity shops and bookstalls.
DeleteOh those Readers Digest condensed books - and I'm sure people thought they were 'worth a bob or two'.
I suspect it was the shiny leather-look bindings that made people think so. Books for people who don't actually read books.
DeleteSovay
Yes I fear so
DeleteWe inherited a batch from my father's mother (my father being a hoarder there was no way we would get rid of them) and as a voracious reader I did read my way through many of them. I recall being surprised at how wordy the original Green Mansions was, and the unabridged Marjorie Morningstar made sense of some passages that seemed oddly vague (because heavily bowdlerized) in my RDC version.
DeleteI suppose they did encourage reading.
DeleteYou don't see this so much now, but in the earlier days of audiobooks, they were often considerably abridged, and that wasnt always clear. I was in bookgroup with someone who would regularly say 'well I didn't think the plot was clear, and the author didnt tell us X' etc and eventually we'd say 'were you listening on audiobook? I think you'll find....'
I remember reading quite a bit in the Reader's Digest books, but I was rarely interested enough in the novels to find the complete version to read. I don't remember the bindings being noteworthy, but maybe they were different over here.
DeleteIt's not so much that I went looking for them as that I read the RDC versions when I was 10-12ish, and then stumbled across the full versions when I was older. This may say something about the reading level of the RDC subscribers! The bindings were pretty, probably fake leather rather than real, but in varied colors, and on the spine were little medallions edged in gold with the titles of the books included. The paper covers imitated the colors of the actual binding, but with big "Readers' Digest Condensed" banner on the front, whereas under the paper, the front and back cover were plain. They did make a good-looking display, and they certainly gave people a good idea of both the Important Books of the Moment (one I could not get on with even in abridged form was Advise and Consent, far too much politics) and of classics (or "classics"--I don't think Green Mansions has survived the test of time, though maybe it says something that it inspired a comic series . . . oh, I wonder if it was included b/c of the Audrey Hepburn movie)--anyway, in an era when people really did read, or thought they should, the condensed books let people "keep up with the conversation." Whereas I "kept up" through reviews in the NYT, NY Review of Books, and TLS when I could manage to get my hands on it, back in the day when I tried to keep up. These days it's either scholarship or the sort of books that Moira discusses, thank you!
DeleteFascinating! I definitely remembered them as having fancy bindings, but wouldnt have had the specific memory Dame E has. The idea was that they would line up in a row and look impressive on the shelf. An earlier generation would have had a row of Dickens books. (I once bought 6 or 7 ancient, secondhand Dickens books very cheaply when I was a penniless youngster, and when I came to read them, the pages had not even been cut, they were untouched. I can clearly remember reading Bleak House and being infuriated that I had to keep slicing the pages, I was dying just to get on with the story.)
DeleteDid each RD book contain three choices? Was it one modern, one informative and one classic or was it more random than that?
Newspapers used to give away free Complete Dickens in the 1920s (along with Bernard Shaw). I've still got a Complete Dickens via George Newnes. Like you, I had to cut the pages and acquired a paperknife (I think it cost more than the books!) after disastrous attempts to cut them with my fingers.
DeleteYes! I can remember being in bed, all cosy on a cold dark night, ripping the pages apart and wondering whether I could bring myself to get out of bed and go downstairs in the unheated house to get a knife, or if I should just carry on tearing...
DeleteI remember there being four or five condensed books to a volume, and I think there was a formula close to what you describe. Maybe one humorous novel to leaven the serious works. It probably depended partly on which publishers and authors were willing to cut deals!
DeleteIt would be interested to know how many condensed books led people to read the full books or whether readers were satisfied that they had done all they needed with the condensed book
DeleteThe Wikipedia article is informative and has an image, also lists all the contents for the various years, which allowed me to see which books I read and which I ignored or didn't get on with. Popular writers include some mentioned on this blog! Apparently Victoria Holt was frequently featured. They certainly mixed up Majah, Minah, and Mediocah. Now I might want to go back and read the full versions of some things I read in the RDC . . .
DeleteI looked at the list - wow. So many forgotten books, either deservedly or undeservedly.
DeleteI didn't read enough of them to conjure up the books themselves but I can see it must have been compelling to have a look and remember...
A bit like your problem with Miss Marple, I am certain that a lot of the Angela Thirkell books had multiple jumble/ white elephant sales. I do recall that an ex-African Bishop ended up with an Aunt Sally after one of the late WW2 books (A Worzel Gummidge reference for some of us of a certain age).
ReplyDeleteYes when I was assembling the post my heart quailed with Pym, Thirkell and Christie.
DeleteI'm not sure if I've read that one, though I did recently find out what happened to the ex-African bishop in the end...
Like Margot, I'd never heard of jumble sales until I started reading English mysteries. Or of fetes--I don't think there's an equivalent here, at least where I've lived. Churches have parking-lot sales (like mini flea markets) and holiday bazaars and rummage sales, but I haven't heard of going door-to-door asking for contributions. Lots of things about the villages' religious life were almost foreign to me. Maybe because of living in a country settled by so many NonConformists?!
ReplyDeleteEnglish Non-Conformists have jumble sales too, though! I’m sure Mildred in Excellent Women comments on the ecumenical value of jumble sales, as members of all denominations attend each other’s events.
DeleteSovay
church holiday bazaar sounds the closest to a village fete and I remember something similar when we lived in US. Obviously in the UK you always arrange for it to be out of doors (with only vague alternative plans) any time between Easter and Harvest, because of the wholly reliable weather here....
DeleteCollecting door-to-door has reminded me of a favourite story from our family lore which I will certainly insert into the followup post that is surely coming.
That's interesting about the "ecumenical value" of jumble sales! It could be another of my erroneous impressions, but in GA books there seems to be more religious homogeneity in the villages, with the N-C's mentioned now and then, but the focus on the CofE. Maybe that's just another trope, though?
DeleteYou're right about the villages - C of E is definitely the default, especially for the gentry; "Chapel" (ie non-conformist) the usual alternative, but tending to be for the lower orders only; and little sign of RC except in the Cotswold village Father Brown inhabits in the BBC TV series, where the English Reformation never happened!
DeleteMildred lives in central London however, so there are a lot more religious options.
Sovay
Very good description Sovay.
DeleteNot clear which alt-history planet the TV Fr Brown lives on
I think fetes must be much more ambitious than the church bazaars I've been to--although maybe big-city churches can go all out with lots of stalls. Features like a fortune-teller's tent would be out of place there. Of course my knowledge of fetes comes from books only, so I may have gotten the wrong ideas about them.
DeleteCatherine Aird's Passing Strange has a murder at another horticultural show/fete, of the village nurse doing the fortune-teller bit.
DeleteI think fortune-tellers at fetes are going to need a whole section of their own! I just wrote down 7 different examples without pausing.
DeleteThere is actually a questionmark over them beause some church events would consider them inappropriate, no matter how light-hearted the intention
I hope fetes/galas in books will feature on the blog in due course, not just in re: fortune tellers ...
DeleteSovay
There've been quite a few entries on pageants along the way, incorporating some fetes and galas! https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/search?q=pageants
DeleteBut always room for another one...
There was a post here on a Sheila Pim book that featured a goat fair--I'm not sure but I think I recall some kind of sale where a boy buys some snails. It may have been a flower show though.
ReplyDeleteIt is a flower and garden produce show (taking place in 1945 but can’t be called a Victory Flower Show as officially WW2 is nothing to do with Ireland). Tim has exhibited some edible snails, and they’re sold off for charity at the end of the show along with most of the more attractive exhibits.
DeleteSovay
I always loved the idea of the snails, because there was great theological discussion on whether snails would be acceptable for the Catholics to eat on meat-free Friday as a change from fish. They thought it might be a great business venture.
DeleteI was a little surprised to hear WW2 referred to as The Emergency, although I had known that Ireland wasn't involved. Not that it wasn't a real emergency! (Although over here we didn't admit that until 1941.)
DeleteThey weren't at war, though much affected, so it was a neutral form of words.
DeleteIsn't there some form of words by which Southerners referred to the Civil War? Something like The Late Unpleasantness? Obviously all my info comes from novels!
I think that's the term! Similarly, I was once much astonished (I swear the following really happened) when I heard a very conservative French man refer to the 1789 revolution as "les troubles."
DeleteWell it's a point of view!
DeleteIn Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes I like the two girls in the training college who don't get on, because of 'something about abused hospitality'. Lucy thinks this might be a visit that went wrong ('vamped lovers, stolen spoons') but they are actually called Campbell and MacDonald and this is the 200 year old blood feud...
"Abused hospitality"--talk about understatement! It seems like a long time to hold onto a wrong, but maybe not in the Highlands?
DeleteThat's the point I think - this memory never goes. But also with the point that a fair fight is one thing, but in this case the Campbells were billeted on the MacDonalds, so the hospitality was the issue. The Wikiedia entry is very interesting.
DeleteThis actually turned up in another book I''ve been reading - post to come. Not a massacre, but a reference to the low view held of the Campbells.
Thank you for the honourable mention re: Mapp and Lucia! So much scope for nosiness - Miss Mapp takes the opportunity to walk into Mallards unannounced and poke around to see what her tenant is up to, on the pretext of looking out some of her own old bits and pieces for her jumble sale. Jane in Barbara Pym’s Jane and Prudence also makes good use of jumble collecting as an excuse to “help” Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow sort out the late Mrs Driver’s possessions. A distinction is made there – some things are put aside to be sent to a Distressed Gentlewomen’s charity, and it’s presumably the less attractive garments that end up as jumble.
ReplyDeleteSovay
Thank you for the great sugestion! Mapp and Lucia so funny. I wonder are there other jumble sales in the books?
DeleteHonestly with Pym I thought I had to limit myself, but that is a very good one!
Isn’t there a scene in Agatha Christie’s Sad Cypress where Elinor sorts her deceased aunt’s clothes and puts some items aside for distressed gentlewomen? What dreary lives those distressed gentlewomen must have led.
DeleteNerys
Yes I think you are right. Isn't the housekeeper full of nuanced advice about what could be used to help poor villagers also?
DeleteYou have to HOPE that some of them were good with needlework and could adapt or remake the clothes - there was always the claim that 'there's good stuff in this'....
There’s a splendid church event in John Sherwood’s The Half Hunter, attended by the POV character Jim and his posh Aunt Emily - strictly speaking it’s a Sale of Work, but there are other “attractions” too, including a White Elephant stall at which Aunt Emily does her Lady Bountiful duty: “No, this time I think not the pink vases with the crystal drops. Lady Harrison and I take turns with those and I’m sure it’s her turn … Really? Well, if Lady Harrison is so positive I’m sure she’s right, but I am sick and tired of the sight of them and one day I shall smash them up instead of sending them back.”
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, harking back to a couple of recent posts – Jim has had a run-in with the local Beatniks (whom he suspects of knowing something about the disappearance of a friend) but at the Sale of Work it becomes clear that one of them is leading a double life – existentialist rebel by night, conscientious son of the vicar by day: ‘It was clearly no use trying to interrogate Roger just now. He was on a stepladder, wrestling crossly with the stage curtains …’. Jim also gains insight into why a young man may decide to become a Beatnik: ‘”Welcome, welcome,” beamed the vicar at his post in the porch. Jim studied the family likeness, and saw at once why Roger wore a beard.’
Sovay
I really enjoyed that book, but had forgotten that - its described as a sale of work which is prob why my post didn't come up when I searched the blog for mentions. Love the vases!
Deletehttps://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2018/07/dress-down-sunday-who-wants-to-go-to.html
I remember also a startling scene in an ice-rink...
With apologies for being infuriatingly vague, there's one where a cardigan belonging to one of the stall holders is almost sold as jumble; this sounds Pymish but could be in Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Beautiful Visit. Will try to track it down.
ReplyDeleteYes pease do! It's a trope isn't it, something getting scooped up at a sale or in a charity shop. Feel it could have happened in any of the key authors we've mentioned...
DeleteWhen I saw the post title I of course thought about the jumble sale in Excellent Women, which is probably one of my favourite scenes in the book. However, I would never have thought to find one in a Graham Greene novel! They obviously crop up in some very unexpected places. Jumble sales persisted into the 90s and 00s, because I have been to very many - some slick and well-organised; some more like the chaotic scenes you see in books. When I was little, we used to go to a lot of jumble sales. There was a local one where you could often buy a whole box of secondhand children's books for 50p (which was my pocket money). I would spend the next few weeks working through them, completely indifferent to questions of quality and genre, before returning that box to another jumble sale and replenishing my stock...
ReplyDeleteGraham Greene coming soon - it's a white elephant stall at a rather dreary fete rather than a full-scale jumble sale, but there is an excellent description.
DeleteI'm glad they carried on a bit longer, and how wonderful about the 50p box - I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven with such an arrangement, and would have been first in line.
Susan D here
ReplyDeleteGoodness, I just knew there'd be a tsunami of jumble sale lit refs. Spiced with (oh joy!) a plethora of Readers Digest collections, and a dash of Distressed Gentlewomen. (I almost typed "Gentlemen" -- now there's a concept.) Each worthy of a post in itself.
Personal memories (having been brough up in the Anglican Church) and related reads went through my mind, but I'll restrict myself to this one.
For me, the prize jumble table--aka White Elephant table--appears in DE Stevenson's The Two Mrs. Abbotts (1943). It's actually a bazaar--in support of Home Missions--but the White Elephant table involves some nice bits, including the eventual fate of a pair of very ugly vases. Everyone in the town is there, so the visiting Red Cross lady (and the reader) gets to meet the various characters, along with their foibles and personalities, as she and her host wander from stall to stall.
Well that's an excellent description and makes it clear why they are such a good addition to a book, good for structure and exposition.
DeleteThere's a jumble sale in Jilly Cooper's lovely 'Imogen', as described on the recently repeated JC Backlisted podcast episode. Imogenhas to retrieve something from the pocket of her old school coat which has been sold. Her father is the vicar.
ReplyDeleteOh nice - on my list (as yet unused) is an article Jilly Cooper wrote about jumble sales ie she went to one to write a funny column. I could try to combine the two...
DeleteIn New York City, certainly in my Brooklyn row house neighborhood, we have neither yards nor garages, so we hold stoop sales. -/- One of Phoebe Atwood Taylor's goofy Leonidas Witherall novels pivots around a wartime charity sale — I see that the book is FILE FOR RECORD and the sale is a Victory Swap Meet.
ReplyDeletenbm
I love that idea of a stoop sale. Someone told me that somewhere they'd live (Washinton DC maybe?) there was a nominated Sunday in the month when everyone left unwanted items at the front of their house, and anyone passing was welcome to help themselves. Great idea.
Delete