41st Anniversary of Goudge's Death
Tribute to my Favorite 20th century Female Author
“Forty years of a job I loved… How many people have had that joy?”
🌿 Elizabeth Goudge
Editor’s Note: This was first published a year ago on the fortieth anniversary of Elizabeth Goudge’s death. As we celebrate her again this year, now 41 years later, I am still thinking about how she filled her life with good things, like “glorious music.” She is still for us a burning light in a magical and sometimes dark world.
Forty…
For over forty years from 1934 to 1976, Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge (1900-1984) was a best-selling British author.
She wrote over forty books including adult novels, children’s novels, poetry, short stories, nonfiction and poetry anthologies.
And today is the fortieth anniversary of her death on April 1st, 1984.
The Times:
“GOUDGE. On April 1, gracefully at home, Elizabeth, beloved author, aunt and friend.”
“…Indeed and indeed I say unto you. It is true. It is real. Hold on to it. The lover and beloved will meet. Every sinner who loves me and longs for me will find me. One day you will see me and be with me. However long you may wait, however desperate the struggle, there will come a day that is ‘today’.”
Elizabeth Goudge, God So Loved the World
“Her faith was deep and quiet, totally unostentatious, open and accepting, certainly compassionate and undoubtedly the centre, the hub, and I think the main motivation behind all that she did and wrote, certainly fed by prayer and reflection and also by the Eucharist which she attended every Sunday when she could and which, when she wasn’t well enough to go to church towards the end of her life, was brought to her...”
Hugh Dutton, Elizabeth’s second cousin (the son of Helene) speaking about Goudge after her death
Rose Cottage
Goudge had a fall, but was able to spend the last few days back at her Rose Cottage in Peppard Common. She died in a downstairs room, with friends by her side, in the season of Lent still waiting for Easter. It is a joy that we can celebrate her today, Easter Monday, knowing that she is having a forever Easter with Our Lord.
“As they ate their breakfast round the fire, warm and comforted and happy, their living Lord there in the midst of them and the spring dawn brightening all about them, did they think to themselves that to die and come home to Paradise would be rather like this? Not frightening at all, just a passing out of night and darkness, weariness and failure, into light. Nothing strange, but a land that was familiar, and Our Lord standing on the shore to welcome them.”
Elizabeth Goudge, God So Loved the World
See more of Goudge’s garden here: Elizabeth Goudge’s garden
The “glorious music” hour
When Hugh would come to visit Elizabeth in her last years, he reported that:
“After tea and before supper Elizabeth would say, ‘Now it’s time to listen to some glorious music,’ whereupon she would recline on the settee and I was the one who had to choose the concert for the evening from her collection of records; and there we would be just the two of us—Jessie was usually in the kitchen preparing the supper, but with the door open so that she could listen also—listing to an hour and a half of ‘glorious music.’ And we listened; just the music, no reading no conversation. It was not just to be listened to but also to be prayed, of that I am certain… Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Album, Mozart’s 21st piano concerto and the Beethoven late quartets immediately come to mind. Until I really knew Elizabeth I could never cope with the late quartets but now solely thanks to her I love them. The 131 was her absolute favorite.”1
Opus 131 opens with a mornful Adagio, but it is soon very playful. It reminds me a bit of Goudge’s stories, and I wonder how many times she plotted out a scene in these evening hours of glorious music for her next day’s work.
Hugh added:
“Undoubtedly in my view, music was an essential part of Elizabeth’s faith experience; she saw it as a way of praying and of being in communion with God.”2
Letter writing
The Joy of the Snow is Goudge’s autobiography, which it seemed might never happen as in 1974 she spent such a good deal of time writing letters to everyone who wrote her:
“Most of her time is taken up answering letters. She still gets about fifty a week from devoted fans and likes to reply to each one personally. (Goudge) told their interviewer, ‘Some don’t need much answering, of course. But if they come from people who are ill or old I try to say something helpful or encouraging. And children must always be answered in detail.’’3
My dear Madeau…
In the last week of Goudge’s life, one thing we know that she did was dictate “an early Easter card for Madeau, dictated to Jessie and dated Sunday 25th March 1984 (which) says, ‘I’ve been so long in replying because I’ve only just returned from hospital after a bad fall — Nothing broken but a bad shake-up, so that I’m mostly in bed and can’t do much.”4
This is one reason why it is wonderful to look forward to reading all of the other letters to Madeau that have been given to Girls Gone By Publishers for the newest printing of The Joy of the Snow.
Clarissa of Girls Gone By Publishers personally emailed me this updated cover for The Joy of the Snow two weeks ago, with the wish that I share it with you all:
Find out more about the newest print of The Joy of the Snow here:
Read more about Elizabeth Goudge in this photo biography post:
Final prayers
For Goudge’s funeral service, commemorative cards were printed5 with the prayer from The Scent of Water:
Lord have mercy…
Thee I adore…
Into thy hands…
And also a prayer by Thomas Traherne:
“O God, who by love alone art great and glorious, that art present and livest with us by love alone: Grant us likewise by love to attain another self, by love to live in others, and by love to come to our glory, to see and accompany Thy love throughout all eternity.”
How will you celebrate Goudge’s memory today?
Love to hear!
Beyond the Snow by Christine Rawlins, p. 425
Beyond the Snow by Christine Rawlins, p. 424
*Amazon Affiliate links are included in this newsletter. I make a few cents per recommendation, each of which I hope will be helpful to you! Note: I also include many links which are not affiliates to other sites for research and photo credit purposes.
Beyond the Snow by Christine Rawlins, p. 439
Beyond the Snow by Christine Rawlins, p. 461
Beyond the Snow by Christine Rawlins, p. 475
I prayed the Rosary for her today 🙏🕊️