A Hilltop on the Marne

[paul guthrie]

She was an American born 1853. She moved to Paris and worked as a translator and author. She was close friends with Alice B Toklas and Gertrude Stein. She wrote this based on her experience in Huiry a tiny village, 29 people in 1914, where she lived during Battle of the Marne. Her house overlooks the Marne valley, a superb setting. There is a picture of the house in the book that's still there today, a great visit! She could see shelling, saw the British retreat down the road by her house, the Germans again, then British again. She worked hard providing for the British and later received letters from some of them.

This book, The Peak of the Load and On the Edge of the War Zone about events later are superbly written and still available.

Her relations with the villagers are fascinating, an example is trying to convince one the earth circles the sun when he can see with his own eyes it's the sun that moves is really good.

She discovered cats during this time and her descriptions of the cats is just wonderful.

These are WW1 classics and I wish more people read them, I do over & over, they are readily available, can't say enough about how good they are!

[Martin Bennitt]

Hear, hear

I recently read HotM and was entranced. It and the others can be downloaded for free. One link (posted in the Virtual Library section) is to a late edition with photographs of inside the house and a couple of places mentioned in the book. I will read the rest in due course.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any photograph of the lady, at least in cyberspace

cheers Martin B

[paul guthrie]

Buy the books! There are pictures of her, the lady who worked for her Amelie, and the house. Boy these are good!

[Jim_Grundy]

First read about the lady in Lyn MacDonald's '1914'. Picked up a copy soon after and thought it was a fantastic read. I'd agree with Paul & Martin and recommend it highly!

[paul guthrie]

I have read all of these again, they are wonderful. This lady was a superb writer and was right there near the front all through the war. The Germans got very close to her in 14 and 18 with neighboring villages evacuated.

She has great accounts of refugees, travel in the war zone, the various units which stayed in her village and house. Her descriptions of her cats and dog and the villagers is just wonderful. These books are as good as it gets. It's obvious she was well loved by her neighbors and the British and French troops she dealt with thought quite highly of her too.

After the war the French gave her the Legion of Honour. She died at Huiry in 1928.

I hope to return there, when there before I was unable to enter her garden. All the military wanted to use it because of it's gerat view of the battlefield.

I just checked Amazon and they have these cheap, you won't find a better way to spend money on books.