Green Dolphin Street: Week 2

Green Dolphin in the World & at War

US Armed Services edition of Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge

"I picture you in every detail of your daily living and think of you surrounded by strange birds and beasts and butterflies that make a necklace of beauty about your day. I shall pray fervently for your happiness. Though you are so far away, the bond between us is very strong, and a threefold cord shall not be broken. You have my love and devotion always. I think of you day and night. Marguerite."

🌿 Elizabeth Goudge, Green Dolphin Street, book 2

Welcome to our discussion for book 2 of Goudge’s bestseller, Green Dolphin Street! (aka Green Dolphin Country)

If you are reading along with us this month, you will know how much longer this book is than many of Goudge’s works! (I had to take a whole afternoon yesterday to catch up on a hundred pages at once, instead of fitting it in during my week.) It is especially surprising that Goudge’s novel made it into readers hands in 1944 as the publishers world wide were struggling with paper shortages.

Christine Rawlins says in her biography of Goudge, Beyond the Snow:

“The shortage of paper in the book-publishing world seems to have been responsible for another new element in her career - for during the war years not only stories but her novels too began to appear in magazines, in abridged or serial format. The Castle on the Hill had been abridged for the July 1942 edition of Omnibook magazine, and now (in 1945) Green Dolphin Country was serialised in Woman's Journal. The blurb announcing the novel's merits calls them "reasons in plenty for us to publish it for the benefit of those readers who have been unable to obtain a copy. Illustrated by Francis Marshall, the first of the six instalments appeared in January 1945, spread across sixteen pages of the magazine…¹

Even with a war paper shortage that almost kept it from being published, and Goudge became a best selling author overnight!

…However paperless the world when the Green Dolphin first appeared, by the time of the tenth UK edition just four and a half years later, it had already sold over half a million copies. The critics praised it. Punch described it as "A curiously luminous book which leaves a strong impression of sunshine and windy skies." George Bishop of The Daily Telegraph found it "breathtaking...a long vista of undulating story, with here and there peaks of volcanic excitement” ²

We will talk today about book 2 including the end of the journey for Captain O’Hara, how Marianne might remind you of another O’Hara, and also a look at the Armed Forces edition of GDS…

“Paddled past Grosse Rocque. It was great to see the new flag flying at Flagrock on the west coast” Caption and Photo by Outdoor Guernsey

US Armed Services edition