hardcover, published 1979 St Martin’s Press. The cover and internal illustrations are done by Maurice Wilson and are, as usual, beautiful, and beautifully done.
In fact this particular copy has huge value to me for a number of reasons. I corresponded with the author for some years, and my friend Andre Norton also loved her work. The copy I have is the one Doreen sent to Andre and has a slip from her letter which says so, glued into the book. I value the book three times over as a result, once that it was written by a friend, once that it was given to Andre, who, knowing I hadn’t yet found a copy, gave it to me shortly before her death, and a third time that I have always loved Doreen Tovey’s books and re-read this one and the others every few years.
This particular volume is the sequel to The Coming of Saska, (which recounted how one of the Tovey’s previous Siamese had died and they’d acquired a new Siamese boy.) It includes tales of the author’s donkey, the local mice, local people, some very odd events, and has stories about Shebalu, their Siamese girl. As always, the book is warm, gentle, very funny in places, and takes an affectionate look at everything around them. It’s more bitsy than previous books, it goes back and forth in time, and places, and includes tales about the Siamese cats owned by friends of the author.
Very interestingly, one of these is a tale about an American author named Elizabeth Linnington, which provides another connection since she was a long-time friend of a long-time friend of mine, and when she died in 1988 she left him all her “author copies,” each with a slip inside saying that this was so. I’d always liked her three series, and, and as I’d had problems obtaining many of her books in New Zealand, I purchased those copies that I didn’t have, directly from Rinehart and thus I have some copies stating that they are from the Estate of Elizabeth Linnington. Andre also knew Elizabeth and liked her work, the Luis Mendoza series in particular, so that there is something of a circular feel to the whole thing. I’m not the only person I know who loves Tovey’s work either. Two other good friends collected most of her books, and shortly before one of them died in 2011, she gave me all of the Tovey’s she owned to ensure that they wouldn’t be simply dumped. Since I already had them all I now have some duplicates, mostly in hardcover. For anyone reading this blog who also loves Doreen Tovey, is missing some of her books, and would like to have them. Email me via this site and we can talk about it.
Her books are recommended very strongly to those who love animals in general, cats – Siamese in particular, to those with a sense of humour, a liking for England and the English countryside way of life, and semi-autobiographies. These books don’t date and I plan to re-read mine regularly for another 20 years – or however many more I live.