What Was Your First D. E. Stevenson Book?
From Mrs. Tim Gets A Job 1947
A member of the DES
Onelist asked, "What was your first DES book?" Here are
answers from some of her readers:
First DES book? I'm sure it was
The Blue Sapphire at about age 18. A
My first DES book had a WW II cover
and that intrigued me - so I got it and
My first DES was Miss Buncles's
Book. I was in Thailand, doing research on family life in a
Northern Thai village, and I had just given birth to my
daughter. There were complications, and the doctor told my
husband to send for my mother (very frightening). She
brought a copy of Miss Buncle's Book to read on the plane.
She read it all, and then, since the flight was so long, and
the book was so good, she figured she'd just read it over
again, so she did. I inherited that copy.
The first one I read was "Shoulder
the Sky". I bought it at a junk store that was selling
paperback books for 5 for $1.00. That was in about 1974 I
think. I loved it and read it over again a couple of times
before it occurred to me to check the library for others by
the same author. They had a few which I checked out on a
regular basis then we moved and the library in the town we
moved to had a large collection of them...I was delighted!
I later ended up working in that library and at one point we
got a new and modern librarian who withdrew almost all the
DES's. Lucky for me I was working in the catalogueing dept.
by then as was able to confiscate them before they went to
the dumpster!
My first was Miss Buncle. We ran
across it by accident, but my Mom and I were hooked. We
took to scouring booksales for copies no matter how tatty.
Now with the Internet, I have to budget myself in completing
my set. Easier but more expensive. Blue Sapphire wasn't my
first, but with Listening Valley it is one of my favourites.
Here at the Library most of our DES is large type, since the
originals are falling apart. The large type reprints were
the only way to replace them at the time.
The first one that I read was The
Blue Sapphire. I borrowed it from the high school library.
The blurb on the cover compared DES to Emilie Loring. I had
read a couple Emilie Lorings and enjoyed them so I dove
right in. I don't care for Emilie Loring anymore, too
soap-opera-like and too much petty intrigue, but I will
enjoy DES forever. It was a couple of years before I found
any more. I think the next ones I read were Gerald and
Elizabeth and The House of the Deer. Barbara
I don't remember which was the
first DES title I read. I came across them in the school
library, along with Georgette Heyer, and Daphne du Maurier.
I started buying them in Fontana paperbacks when I saw them
in our local newsagent's store. The bookshops were all in
the town centre, and we didn't go down to town very often.
Too expensive to take all of us children on the bus, and the
younger ones couldn't walk that far. When Dick and I started
going to book fairs about 10 - 15 years ago, I upgraded to
hard backs, and completed my collection of DES novels
eventually, partly also from sending out want lists to book
dealers.
The first D E Stevenson book I read
was Katherine Wentworth. My aunt had that one and The
Marriage of Katherine. I am so glad I started out that way.
I still really enjoy reading that set over and over. From
then on I went to used book sales and library sales (this
was in the early 70's) and looked everywhere for her books.
Then I found an ACE paperback of Amberwell, and saw in the
back of the book an order form for more of her books. I
ordered 15 ACE books and after that picked up one now and
then at a library sale. That was in the 70's. After that,
I didn't have the pleasure of finding the rest of her books
until I discovered E-Bay last August. Then I spent my
savings on collecting the rest of her books, with the
exception of Peter West and Empty World. Those, I will not
second mortgage the house to get.
My parents and 10 year old sister
and I took a long family vacation. ....as we took the
highway across the top of Wyoming, the trip had gotten
DESstinctly dull, and the countryside was flat and brown and
tumbleweedy. When we got to a wide place in the road that
called itself Moorcroft, Wyoming, my dad decided he couldn't
drive any more. Moorcroft had a motel and a cafe and a drug
store. I regret to tell you that 15 year old Suzi and her 10
year old sister, Christy, did more than their share of
whining: "there's nothing to DO here" "there's nothing to
SEE here" "there's nothing HERE". ...we all went to the
drug store to look for some entertainment. The paperback
books in the store were all either westerns or war stories.
Mom started hauling the books off the rack, going through
them one at a time, to see if there was anything at all for
me to read. Buried in the bottom of a stack on the bottom
shelf, was Miss Buncle's Book.I read it 4 times before we
got home.
I was working for American Airlines
in about '67 or '68 and on my lunch hour walked over to
the nearby department store to look at their books. I asked
her [the lady who ran the books department] to
recommend a book for me, and The Marriage of Katherine was
just out and on the shelves. I bought a copy and was 'hooked
for life'. Read all I could from the library, which had most
of her
My first introduction to DES was
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment. I was browsing through the
library and found several DES books and being smart, picked
up the second one first and had to go back after I read the
jacket to get the first one. I was completely hooked. I am
now trying to buy the books.
The first one I read was Miss
Buncle's Book, and it was because my mother
The first DES book I ever read was
Celia's House recommended to me by my
Miss Buncle's Book and Miss Buncle
Married were my first DES's, lent to me by a teacher in 7th
grade. Ironically, I don't have those two even though I
loved them.
My first book was the Baker's
Daughter, I think. Back in the early 70's I was browsing in
the library in Butler, PA and they had a wonderful selection
of DES, most of which I liked better than TBD. I've lived in
several towns since and not come across as good a selection
but other towns have offered some good used book stores so I
now have a pretty complete collection. I did get some
through a used book store in Salisbury (Beach) that my
sister found for me when she went to England in the 80's. I
think Listening Valley is my favorite but quite a few others
are lined up with it.
I think it is interesting how many
of us started with Miss Buncle. As much as I love the
others, Miss Buncle (which included Miss Buncle's Book and
Miss Buncle Married) has always seemed to have a special
magic. Perhaps because of the Golden Boy.
My first DES was The Baker's
Daughter. I didn't care for it much and it's surprising that
I ever tried another. I actually bought it as a brand new
ACE paperback in a local bookstore. The second one I bought
was The Blue Sapphire and then I was hooked. I was able to
buy The Musgraves, Vittoria Cottage, and Celia's House all
brand new before they went out of print and were impossible
to find. I've read them all now with the exception of Five
Windows, The Two Mrs. Abbotts, and Spring Magic. I count
myself fortunate! My goal is to buy the ones I haven't read
first, and then go back and build up the rest of my
collection. I have 18 so far, largely because of many of you
lovely Dessie Duchesses who so generously share.
friend lent it to me saying it was unlike anything she'd
read before, and very enjoyable. It was, but I didn't catch
the bug. A little later, a different friend recommended
Amberwell, with a similar commendation. I enjoyed it, but
again no catch. Then I found Miss Buncle's Book in the
local bookstore, and was intrigued by the premise, so I
bought it and the rest is history. It wasn't until I
started devouring all I could find that I recognised the
earlier two books as
being by the same author.
Susan D
read and enjoyed Spring Magic. The next one I read was Miss
Buncle's Book -I read the bit about the author writing a
book about a lady writing a book
and I was hooked on DES. I love Miss Buncle's Book and have
read it more
than the others.
Charlotte
Sulie
Debbie
Sithi
Geraldine
Carol
So, of all the things I saw and places I visited on that
trip: theSpearfish South Dakota Passion Play, Pipestone
National Monument in Minnesota, the Grand Tetons, the Grand
Canyon, Old Faithful, the Rocky Mountains -- the trip to the
drugstore in Moorcroft, Wyoming may have been my most
valuable, because that is where I met D. E. Stevenson, and
Miss Buncle.
Suzi
books. I didn't find any to buy for myself except the ones
which came out after The Marriage of Katherine until the
late'70s when I came across several Ace paperbacks in a
truck salvage shop. And in the 80s I began seriously looking
in used book stores. My big thrill was finding a first
edition of A World in Spell for $10.00. And once I bought 17
copies from a nearby library which wanted to get rid of
them. They were 50 cents a piece......
Kristi
Chris
owned that one and Miss Buncle Married that I read them. At
that time
those were the only DES books she owned, and we read most of
the rest from
the library. Since they started to disapear from the
libraries, we started
to collect other titles.
Jerri
friend from Kansas City. Once I had started it I literally
could not put
it down and soon after I read that I was off to find all the
DES books I could get my hands on. I feel very blessed that
the St. Louis library system owns almost all the DES books(I
believe we are missing three novels and the poetry
books....something like that).
Hannah
Cathy
Kathi
Martha
Kerry