83. Dorothy Evelyn Smith — O, the Brave Music with Simon Thomas

In 2021, the British Library Women Writers Series published an edition of Dorothy Evelyn’s Smith’s quietly joyful and sometimes dark coming-of-age novel, O, the Brave Music. Joining us is the series consultant and author of the book’s afterword, Dr. Simon Thomas. Sometimes compared to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I Capture the Castle, O, the Brave Music is set before the first world war and has a female narrator looking back on her childhood as a minister’s daughter on England’s moors. 

Discussed in this episode: 

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books with Sadie Stein

O, the Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Simon Thomas on Instagram 

Tea or Books? Podcast

Stuck In a Book blog

British Library Women Writers Series

Poltergeist (1982 film) 

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso

Miss Plum and Miss Penny by Dorothy Evelyn Smith

Proud Citadel by Dorothy Evelyn Smith

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam

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84. Quilt-Making As a Feminist, Political Act

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82. The Polarizing Ambiguities of Motherhood in Books