Letters from the Little Blue Room

By Daisy Thomson Gigg

Category: All Books, Fiction, Historical, Non-fiction, Women's

Formats available: Hardback, Ebook

Publication date: 01/10/24

ISBN-13: 9781909954489

ISBN-10: 1909954489

A ‘lost’ women’s classic from World War I, discovered in the rare books room of the British Library and published for the first time since 1917.

Letters from the Little Blue Room is a powerful sequence of letters from 1914-1916, from a Scottish woman to her younger brother, who was returning to Europe as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, to fight in the trenches of WWI.

Published anonymously, this edition reveals the identity of the author, the Scottish-American writer Daisy Thomson Gigg.

She is writing from Dunfermline, the hometown of Andrew Carnegie and the base of the Black Watch regiment. Her letters bristle with humour, advice, wisdom drawn from poetry and essays, and poignant tales of life and characters on the home front. It builds toward an utterly moving climax.

A foreword by Professor Angela K. Smith sets the book in the context of other women writers of the period. An afterword by Martin Goodman, emeritus professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull, adds true biographical detail to the characters met in the book, including the author. Footnotes help readers grasp the contemporary details that fuel the real-time storytelling.

This is a strong addition to War Studies, Women’s Studies, and the history of Canadian involvement in WWI. It also brings a powerful Scottish-American author to global attention.

Very much based on true-life observations and the unfolding narrative of the war, Letters from the Little Blue Room also displays the power of a 20th century master of fiction.

 

Reviews

Letters of an ordinary woman living in a country town where only a tributary of the broad war-stream flows, to a young brother who came over with the first Canadian contingent to serve in “the war to end war.” They do not aim at being clever nor deep, but are just plain letters—bits of gossip, comments on all manner of subjects, little bits of advice and cheer, and a fair share of humor. A fascinating human document.

- The Herald, 1917

However we define it, Letters from the Little Blue Room is a compelling read. Finally, rightfully credited here, Daisy Thomson Gigg creates a voice as alive and open, fresh and engaged as when she sat at the little round table, beneath the red-shaded lamp more than a century ago, writing to her Boy, determined to keep his spirits up and remind him of home.

- Professor Angela K. Smith, author of "Women's Writing of the First World War"

Daisy Thomson Gigg

Daisy Thomson Gigg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1885. At the age of four she moved to Scotland with her Scottish family, settling in the town of Dunfermline. Letters from the Little Blue Room was her first book, published anonymously in 1916, followed by a book of short stories, The Call. Styling herself ‘a fiction writer’ she emigrated back to the USA in 1921, marrying a fellow novelist and farmer and settling in Penrose, Colorado. She continued writing stories, and being very active in the suffragette movement. She died in a fire …

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