Henrietta's House: Week 1

Books, Trains, Carriages & Motorcars for Elizabeth Goudge's fairytale

An illustration of Henrietta picking up Hugh Anthony at the railway station in the Girls Gone By Publishers 2013 edition.

“I love so many people that I get quite tired running from one to the other to see if they are getting on all right. What I need is a house of my own where I can collect them all together under one roof now and then, and sit down comfortably and love them in peace and quiet..."

🌸 Elizabeth Goudge, Henrietta’s House

Elizabeth Goudge wrote the cozy story of Henrietta’s House in the 1940’s. She was able to capture in it the peace of her Victorian childhood in Wells, UK, but also the excitement that would have been felt by all of those young people, like Jocelyn and Felicity, who were entering a new century of innovation. The quiet rhythms of Torminster are a balm to our own souls in modern times, and lend this story ever more fairytale quality. In the opening scenes, Hugh Anthony and Henrietta travel by slow station bus home into the Cathedral Close in such enviable style:

“They were off, rattling slowly and sleepily over the cobbles, rolling home to Grandfather and Grandmother through narrow, beautiful streets where tall houses leaned across to talk to each other, and fresh streams of clear water, that had come down from the blue hills that shut in the Torminster Valley, ran singing along the gutters before the old bow windows and the old front doors…”

Join me today for a look at the children’s books that Goudge recommended, and the trains, carriages and motorcars the sped up life in sleepy Torminster:

Henrietta in the bookshop with the Old Gentleman choosing books for a little girl’s library.

Goudge’s Book List for Children