Try free for 30 days
-
Good Evening, Mrs. Craven
- The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $15.19
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Someone at a Distance
- By: Dorothy Whipple
- Narrated by: Susan Wooldridge
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ellen and Avery North share a stable and secure life. Everything is well looked after: their teenage children, their garden, and Avery’s elderly mother who lives nearby. In time, old Mrs North decides she is in need of a live-in companion, and Louise Lanier arrives after responding to a newspaper advert. When Louise sets out to seduce Avery for the fun of it, her behaviour threatens to destroy Ellen and Avery’s peaceful life together.
-
My Husband Simon
- By: Mollie Panter-Downes
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tells the story of the married life of Nevis Falconer, a young woman novelist, and Simon Quinn. Temperamentally unsuited, they live this superficial existence for three years, until one day Nevis meets Marcus Chard, her American publisher, who has just arrived in London. Soon friendship develops into love. Nevis finds herself caught in a whirl of circumstances over which she has no control.
-
Chatterton Square
- By: E. H. Young
- Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'You don’t mean you're going to divorce him?' Miss Spanner said with horror. A sophisticated, emotive novel, Chatterton Square concerns the complex web of relationships between two neighbouring families, the Blacketts and the Frasers. Framed by the advance of the Second World War, the subtle mechanics of marriage and love are laid bare through the observation of three of the marital options open to the mid-century woman: unmarried, separated, miserably married.
-
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
- By: Winifred Watson
- Narrated by: Frances McDormand
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Middle-aged governess Guinevere Pettigrew visits her employment agency one morning and is mistakenly sent to the glitzy home of a nightclub singer. Miss Pettigrew meets the glamorous Miss Delysia LaFosse and embarks on a whirlwind adventure. These two very different women soon become friends, and Miss Pettigrew proves to be the perfect companion. Instead of having to look after unruly children, Miss Pettigrew spends her evening at a party. But what will happen when the day finally ends?
-
Father
- By: Elizabeth Von Arnim
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since her mother's death, Jennifer has devoted years of her life to her father, managing the family home. After the sudden announcement that he has taken a new wife, Jennifer, at 33, seizes the opportunity to lead an independent life. Quickly she secures the lease of Rose Cottage and turns her attention to her own interests. While Jennifer is desperate to experience life on her own terms within her reduced financial means, her neighbour, Alice, is pre-occupied with ensuring her position as head of her brother's household is never challenged.
-
The Feast
- By: Margaret Kennedy, Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cornwall, midsummer 1947. Pendizack Manor Hotel has just been buried in the rubble of a collapsed cliff. Seven guests have perished, but what brought this strange assembly together for a moonlit feast before this act of God - or man? Over the week before the landslide, we meet the hotel guests in all their eccentric glory: the selfish aristocrat; slothful hotelier; snooping housekeeper; bereaved couple; bohemian authoress; poverty-stricken children - and as friendships form and romances blossom, sins are revealed, and the cliff cracks widen.
-
Someone at a Distance
- By: Dorothy Whipple
- Narrated by: Susan Wooldridge
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ellen and Avery North share a stable and secure life. Everything is well looked after: their teenage children, their garden, and Avery’s elderly mother who lives nearby. In time, old Mrs North decides she is in need of a live-in companion, and Louise Lanier arrives after responding to a newspaper advert. When Louise sets out to seduce Avery for the fun of it, her behaviour threatens to destroy Ellen and Avery’s peaceful life together.
-
My Husband Simon
- By: Mollie Panter-Downes
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tells the story of the married life of Nevis Falconer, a young woman novelist, and Simon Quinn. Temperamentally unsuited, they live this superficial existence for three years, until one day Nevis meets Marcus Chard, her American publisher, who has just arrived in London. Soon friendship develops into love. Nevis finds herself caught in a whirl of circumstances over which she has no control.
-
Chatterton Square
- By: E. H. Young
- Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'You don’t mean you're going to divorce him?' Miss Spanner said with horror. A sophisticated, emotive novel, Chatterton Square concerns the complex web of relationships between two neighbouring families, the Blacketts and the Frasers. Framed by the advance of the Second World War, the subtle mechanics of marriage and love are laid bare through the observation of three of the marital options open to the mid-century woman: unmarried, separated, miserably married.
-
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
- By: Winifred Watson
- Narrated by: Frances McDormand
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Middle-aged governess Guinevere Pettigrew visits her employment agency one morning and is mistakenly sent to the glitzy home of a nightclub singer. Miss Pettigrew meets the glamorous Miss Delysia LaFosse and embarks on a whirlwind adventure. These two very different women soon become friends, and Miss Pettigrew proves to be the perfect companion. Instead of having to look after unruly children, Miss Pettigrew spends her evening at a party. But what will happen when the day finally ends?
-
Father
- By: Elizabeth Von Arnim
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since her mother's death, Jennifer has devoted years of her life to her father, managing the family home. After the sudden announcement that he has taken a new wife, Jennifer, at 33, seizes the opportunity to lead an independent life. Quickly she secures the lease of Rose Cottage and turns her attention to her own interests. While Jennifer is desperate to experience life on her own terms within her reduced financial means, her neighbour, Alice, is pre-occupied with ensuring her position as head of her brother's household is never challenged.
-
The Feast
- By: Margaret Kennedy, Cathy Rentzenbrink
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cornwall, midsummer 1947. Pendizack Manor Hotel has just been buried in the rubble of a collapsed cliff. Seven guests have perished, but what brought this strange assembly together for a moonlit feast before this act of God - or man? Over the week before the landslide, we meet the hotel guests in all their eccentric glory: the selfish aristocrat; slothful hotelier; snooping housekeeper; bereaved couple; bohemian authoress; poverty-stricken children - and as friendships form and romances blossom, sins are revealed, and the cliff cracks widen.
Publisher's Summary
Good Evening, Mrs Craven brings together twenty-one of Mollie Panter-Downes’ short stories. Originally published in The New Yorker between 1939 and 1944, these stories have been reprinted and presented as a collection by Persephone Books. This audio edition is read by Lucy Scott.
These stories explore almost every aspect of English domestic life during the Second World War: separation, fear, and obsessions with food, sewing parties, evacuees’ journeys, and the camaraderie of the Blitz. Above all, Panter-Downes portrays the changes and social revolutions which took place during wartime.
Good Evening, Mrs Craven is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. This edition includes a preface by author Gregory LeStage.