"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"

[fiefoe]

Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows set the story in pretty much the same period as that of "At Mrs Lippincote's", and it's interesting to note their differences in comparison.

The darling British:

• ...the Society to Protest the Glorification of the English Bunny. I unearthed a photograph of the Vermin Exterminators' Trade Union, marching down an Oxford street with placards screaming "Down with Beatrix Potter!"
• Lamb's bright and turning mind / (During a hangover) "I find my moral sense in the last stage of a consumption and my religion getting faint."
• Lamb helped Hunt paint the ceiling of his cell sky blue with white clouds. Next they painted a rose trellis up one wall.
• Finding his sister Mary standing over both (parents) with a bloody knife... how did he persuade the Judge in Court to release her to his care and his care alone? He was only twenty-one years old then..
• His host's butler had to carry him home, slung over his shoulder in a fireman's hold. The next day Charles wrote his host such a hilarious note of apology, the man bequeathed it to his son in his will.
• The Queen was very happy wearing her 1939 wardrobe, so why shouldn't I be? She said the Queen doesn't need to impress strangers - but I do.
• There were awards for every game that could possibly be played with a wooden object: cricket bats, squash racquets... I could never marry a man whose idea of bliss was to strike out at little balls and little birds.
• You answer told me everything I needed to know about him - how many men would admit that they loved ducks?
• Stark said it wasn't his job to reverse the direction of the Lend-Lease and refused to bring you to the cocktail party.
• Island guide: Pray, what is a monarch for, if NOT TO APPOINT PEOPLE TO THINGS?
• Miss Amanda Gillyflower's ll-used by Candlelight.

More literary parts:

• Shakespeare: It seems to me the less he said, the more beauty he made. ."The bright day is done, and we are for the dark."
• Catullus: He did not like it when (Lesbia) petted her downy little sparrow. Jeaslous of a bitty bird, he was.
• When I saw (the German soliders) in their hairnets, walking five abreast down the street, elbowing Islanders off the sidewalk, I thought of Seneca's words about the Praetorian Guard. He'd written - "who of these would not rather see Rome disordered than his hair."
• Carlyle: Does it ever give thee pause, that men used to have a soul - not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth that they knew, and acted upon!... it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls...
• Lamb: The Mind will make friends of any thing.