Grown-up books

Probably Dracula - a very old copy belonging to a granny - even the Gothic script on the front looked scary! It really freaked me out - I couldn’t even have the book in the room afterwards, in case it somehow summoned him - and of course had to keep the bedroom window closed, in case he crawled in that way, as a bat! 🦇

H G Wells' "The Time Machine", borrowed from my grandfather's bookshelf when I was 10 or 11.

Witzend snap! I read Dracula at 10. I was a very precocious reader and had read all the books in the children's section of the library. The assistant librarian gave me an adult ticket so I had the full range to choose from. My dad had to give permission but I had been reading his library books for ages anyway.

I don’t think I ever really made a distinction. I read grown up factual books about ballet and music from the age of nine or so. The first grown up novel I remember was Lady Eleanor Smith’s Ballerina. I was ten and totally addicted to it, though it really wasn’t suitable for children. The plays of Bernard Shaw soon followed, after seeing Saint Joan in my first year at senior school.

Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn.

All sneaked from my mothers bookshelves.

And Wuthering Heights. Couldn’t make head not tail of the plot and who was who.

Lathyrus

Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn.

All sneaked from my mothers bookshelves.

And Wuthering Heights. Couldn’t make head not tail of the plot and who was who.

Me too! I loved them.

👍😁

Agatha Christie

Sherlock Holmes, all read before I was twelve.

I remember going straight from Enid Blyton at the end of my childhood, with maybe a little elapse of time before starting on Agatha Christie which I remember reading throughout my teens. I also remember being about 15 or so and moaning to my mother I was bored, she disappeared upstairs and brought down a tome, called "Gone with The Wind" with a "read this" so I did! and felt quite bereft when I finished it. I probably read Wuthering Heights around that time too.

My G'ma had a bookcase full of penguin paperbacks and I read the lot over the years when we visited.
Started with Agatha Christie and have enjoyed crime fiction ever since.

I think the first full length classic I read at the end of junior school was Wilkie Collins “The Moonstone”. Then I developed a taste, fostered by my father, for H Rider Haggard and John Masters. I discovered sci fi through Professor Fred Hoyle’s Andromeda series and then Nigel Kneale’s “Quatermass” series. I blotted my copy book with my father by bringing home from the library a number of Dennis Wheatley’s black magic thrillers! He thought they were beyond the pale for someone at my age and was disgusted when I told him that our English teacher had recommended them!

I read Our Man In Havana, Graham Greene when I was 10.

I casually took it from my parents bookshelf saying that I was too old for childrens books. My mum said I wouldn't like it so I read it all and said I loved it. I didn't like it at all but didn't want to prove her right.

My dad gave me Far from the Madding Crowd to read when I was about eleven, the start of my love affair with Thomas Hardy

I’d read all my books so I routed randomly through my dads bookshelf & picked up and started reading The Virgin Soldiers, I’d be around 13, I found it amusing but never finished it.
My Grandma gave me a lovely old copy of Jane Eyre around the same time & I loved it.
I also remember the Dennis Wheatley books Greyduster the one that stands out for me is ‘To the Devil a Daughter’, I have looked out for his books in secondhand book & charity shops but never see any.

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Not sure what I read when to be honest.
But do remember reading these (and others) in these 1950s covers.

I found Victoria Holt historic romance novels in my pre-teen years and was hooked. I should find one and read it again to see what intrigued me about these.

Also read - and probably shouldn't have - quite a few interesting "contemporary" adult novels by just taking them off the bookshelf at home. One was Clockwork Orange
and one was Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - my daughter asked me recently if I'd heard of it. I think it's had a bit of a come-back.
I also read all the Georgette Heyers by the time I was 15.

It's really hard to know which was the first adult novel if you never really got to differentiate between them.
I obviously knew that the "modern" books at home were aimed at adults if they hadn't been given to me.

Conan Doyle and Dickens, but I never thought of them as grown-up books.

Jane Eyre when I was ten. Then Agatha Christie. Then Jane Austen.

I probably started at about 13. I was reading historical novels - Jean Plaidy and Anya Seton. I read a lot of John Buchan, John Wyndham and Daphne Du Maurier.

NotSpaghetti

Also read - and probably shouldn't have - quite a few interesting "contemporary" adult novels by just taking them off the bookshelf at home. One was Clockwork Orange
and one was Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - my daughter asked me recently if I'd heard of it. I think it's had a bit of a come-back.
I also read all the Georgette Heyers by the time I was 15.

It's really hard to know which was the first adult novel if you never really got to differentiate between them.
I obviously knew that the "modern" books at home were aimed at adults if they hadn't been given to me.

Mum had a few rows of books on an old bookshelf in her bedroom which I wasn’t supposed to touch, but one long Summer holiday when I was around 12 and she was out at work I took a couple of books to my room to read.
One was Giovanni’s Room which was a real eye popper being about male love! The other was a Georgette Heyer called I think Recency Buck 😄 I could see the James Baldwin book was really well written but liked the Heyer one much more.
I then went on to get all her books from the library, and enjoyed every one.

I can't remember when I moved on from horsey and boarding schools gipirls' fiction to adult fiction, probably at about 13?

Dennis Wheatley books, firstly The Devil Rides Out
Jean Plaidy historical novels
Daphne du Maurier books
Ray Bradbury, science fiction
Agatha Christie books
Animal Farm
Some were my Mum's, others borrowed from the library. My SisIL, being much older, lent me a lot of books too.

I found a copy of Peyton's Place under my mother's pillow but she found out and banned me from reading it.

Oreo - how nice to find Heyer and Baldwin together in someone else's early reading! Seem strange "bed-fellows" now!