A brief quote to whet your appetite:
A review of her work by the poet Muriel Grainger describes her achievement: “She is unique in being a writer of extremely popular romances which are at the same time fundamentally religious. Not that Miss Goudge sets out to ‘put Christianity across’. The love of God; the power of prayer, the reality of the Kingdom of the Spirit — these things are woven into the fabric of her plots with a naturalness and inevitability that come from Miss Goudge’s own convictions and experience, and it is this factor that make them so acceptable and so telling.”
The author at home in 1935.
And another quote from the article:
Goudge’s autobiography The Joy of the Snow is a self-deprecating assessment of her own life, and shows deep Christian joy and gratitude. But, in a new biography of Goudge by Christine Rawlins, Beyond the Snow, we learn that, beneath the joy, there was considerable suffering: mental and physical illness, lost love, the burden of caring for her mother. She had been an intensely withdrawn only child, with a stammer, and suffered from muscular-skeletal pain throughout her life. She even experienced a nervous breakdown after an operation in 1937.
Her autobiography published in 1974.
There is also this thoroughly researched biography
if you are so enamored of her and her work (as am I)
that you want to know as much as possible
about the woman who wrote such lovely books.
Regarding her stories, classified as "romances"
I'll just add my two bits and declare
they are much, much more than romances!
I've been reading her novels since my mother first began
bringing them home from the library over 50 years ago
and with each reading
I find more beauty and spiritual depth
than the time before.
Mary Magdalene Church by Matthew Andrew of New Milton, Hampshire
While she spent the last thirty years of her life
at Rose Cottage in Dog Lane, Peppard Common, Oxfordshire,
Elizabeth's final resting place is beside her parents
at Mary Magdalene Church in New Milton, Hampshire.
I wonder if anyone goes there to leave flowers for her.
I would if I could.
And this is why,
quoting again from the Church Times article:
From a young age, her words opened up this kind of vision to me.
And this is why,
quoting again from the Church Times article:
In a preface for a volume of poetry written by the Sisters of Burnham Abbey, Goudge describes the the Sisters’ vision with deep insight: “Because they see all life and creation irradiated by the love of God, they see in depth; a sunrise means more than itself and pain has purpose. Yet the unity of outlook cannot dim the individuality of each separate poem. When love is the creating power, it seems impossible for two sparrows’ feathers, or even two snowflakes, ever to be the same. The stronger the microscope, the less are they alike. This is the way God likes it.”
Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing your special gift of storytelling
which has run like a golden thread through my own life,
and the lives of many others who have come to
appreciate what you had to give.
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