Ursula Bloom. Rosemary for Stratford-on-Avon (1966)

     Ursula Bloom. Rosemary for Stratford-on-Avon (1966) A gossipy memoir of Stratford in the early 1900s, presumably the time the author was a young girl. Most of the story deals with Marie Corelli, who arrived in Stratford and promptly made a damn nuisance of herself. Bloom has no qualms imagining dialogue, thoughts, and feelings; the book reads like an episodic novel. Apparently it’s now rare; Mother sent me this copy for Christmas 1998. She annotated it with brief marginal references to people. Uncle Paul noted that the photograph of the Rev. George Arbuthnot was taken by Uncle Peter. The book covers the beginning of the commercialisation of S-on-A, but Bloom spends so much time on her history of the evil Corelli that we don’t get much sense of how this proceeded. But in general it’s an interesting sidelight on the town, and its references to some of my ancestors makes it important in our family history. No index, and no indication why the selected photographs, rather than others, were included.**½ (2003)