Sold by Bull's Head Rare Books, ABAA, ILAB, Lebanon, NJ, U.S.A.
Association Member:
AbeBooks Seller since December 17, 2020
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
6 vols. 677 pp total. Vol. I: 1940; Vol. II: 1941; Vol. III: 1942 (31 December 1941 to 19 January 1943); Vol. IV: 1943 (12 January to 30 December); Vol. V: 17 February to 23 June 1945; Vol. VI: 24 June to 29 October 1945. Approximately 1/2 linear foot total. "I am at this stage of my obscure existence, sixteen years old …."A remarkable and vivid self-portrait of the development of a deeply thoughtful, intelligent and talented young Jewish girl in wartime Liverpool and London. Written between the ages of 14 and 20 while Froma is living first at the family home in Liverpool (5 Sefton Park Rd) and attending Aigburth Vale High School for Girls, whose loathed headmistress is Miss E.M. Curry. Later, Froma is stationed in London while serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). We see Froma grappling with her Jewish identity and sexuality (including a strong attraction to several older women), experiencing frequent trouble with authority at school and home (her father appears to have been psychologically, and possibly physically, abusive). She is a talented pianist and artist (many examples of her sketches are included here), well-read (reading Bertrand Russell, Freud, Voltaire, Huxley, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf, whose A Room of One s Own gives her "an itch to write a book & so much so that I wrote some notes on the same"). She is a self-described atheist and anarcho-syndicalist internationalist. She attends Young Communist and Zionist meetings (while holding a skeptical attitude towards both movements), listens to Elgar, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, plays Bach and Chopin (for whom, in 1942, she is "cultivating a hungry taste ), and sees Ibsen plays in London with "B.I.B.", a woman for whom she has a particular crush. While in London serving as a switchboard operator in Olympia as a private in the ATS, Froma hears Aneurin Bevin, C.E.M. Joad and H.G. Wells speak, sees Churchill and General Alexander, takes part in the VE and VJ Day celebrations, and begins applying to medical schools to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. Details of the rest of Froma s life, besides her death in London in 1999, are unknown.The diaries cover roughly the years 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1945. In addition to the diaries are a quantity of incoming letters from various correspondents, including Froma s sometimes love interests Benson Russell, "B.I.B" and "Wad" (more on them below). Also included are numerous pen and pencil sketches by Froma, original poems, school reports, and various ephemera and clippings.What follows are some highlights from the diaries, grouped by subject.LOVE, SEXA series of infatuations with adults, both men and women, are described through the course of the diaries. 7 Jan. 1941, she declares that she is "Oh so passionately in love with Ben [her cousin Benson Russell, serving in the British Army]. Russell, in a letter of 1942, returns the affection, "notwithstanding red herrings about grammar, quotations from T.S. Eliot, asterisks and scary footnotes." The diaries also obsessively detail Froma s infatuation with a number of older women, including "Wad" [her teacher Mrs. Waddington] and "B.I.B" [Mrs. Beatrice I. Barnes, killed in 1944 in her home, along with her son, in a bombing raid east of London. This is perhaps an explanation for the lacuna in the diaries between 1943 and 1945]. 20 April 1942: the culmination of a long entry on her feelings towards B.I.B, "Oh Mrs. Barnes I do so love you." With a later note "N.B Three months later I read a book on homosexuality. I m writing this quite honestly for the mistaken reader, if any. There was no sex or anything in loving B.I.B. But definitely an overwhelming yearning to be loved an guided by a mother. "27 April 1941: Two soldiers come for supper, one of them being attracted to FS. "It is obvious that Warren Simon likes me very much and I like him very much also, he said it was a pity I wasn t a bit older and joked he could wait for me, he said he loved me but he is 30 yea.
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