First edition dust jacket illustration, sadly not my personal copy.
Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom ~ 1934. This edition: Corazon Books, 2016. Softcover. ISBN: 978-1909752269. 327 pages.
My rating: 7/10
My second-ever Ursula Bloom novel and I enjoyed it, though it never quite breaks into A-list status. Maybe A-minus?
Anyway, I liked it, and it’s a keeper, for those times when one requires an utterly effortless diversionary read. (I also own the equally engaging and so-close-to-A-list 1965 mild psychological thriller The Quiet Village, but I don’t think I have chatted it up here yet.)
I’m keeping my eyes open (in a casual sort of way) for more novels by this supremely prolific writer, and have been for some years. They are surprisingly rare in used book stores, at least on this side of the Atlantic, or at least in the ones I have frequented. There must be stacks of them out there somewhere.
From the About the Author page at the back of this Corazon edition:
Ursula Bloom was one of the most popular bestselling authors of the twentieth century. She wrote over 560 books, a feat which earned her a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for many years, as the world’s most prolific female writer. She also wrote short stories, radio and stage plays, and worked as a Fleet Street journalist.
During her long career, as well as writing books under her own name, Ursula used the pen names Sheila Burns, Rachel Harvey, Lozania Prole, Mary Essex and Deborah Mann.
So what I really want to know now is who bumped Ursula from her “most prolific female writer” spot? Danielle Steele, perhaps? Let’s see what Google says…and oh golly! This Wikipedia page is an astonishing (and slightly troubling) thing. In recognizable names of English-language writers, it looks like both Enid Blyton and Barbara Cartland have surpassed Ursula Bloom, with, respectively, 600+ and 722 published works. Who knew?!
This mind-boggling digression put behind me, here’s a quickie synopsis of Wonder Cruise.
An orphaned daughter of the vicarage, left destitute as is the tradition in these sorts of things, finds herself living in London under the thumb of a bullying older brother. She manages to attain independence through a secretarial job, but begins to find that the daily grind is just that, with a long bleak vista a years-all-the-same stretching ahead, until a chance sweepstake win triggers a personal reinvention.
The usual sequence of events occurs, with the eventual finding of true love. Absolutely predictable, but decently readable. Sexual awakening is a great part the theme here, stated in those very words. The tiniest bit unexpected for a popular novel from 1934, but then again, not really, when one considers what else was going on in the actual and literary world at the time.
Corazon Books of London (“bringing you great stories with heart”), the republisher responsible for Wonder Cruise once again seeing the light of day, provides this enthusiastic blurb:
Ann Clements is thirty-five and single, and believes nothing exciting will ever happen to her. Then, she wins a large sum of money in a sweepstake and suddenly can dare to dream of a more adventurous life. She buys a ticket for a Mediterranean cruise, against the wishes of her stern brother, the Rev. Cuthbert, who has other ideas about how she should spend her windfall. Ann steps out of the shadows of her mundane life into the heat of the Mediterranean sun. Travelling to Gibraltar, Marseilles, Naples, Malta and Venice, Ann’s eyes are opened to people and experiences far removed from her sheltered existence in the offices at Henrietta Street, and Mrs. Puddock’s lodging house. As Ann blossoms, discovering love and passion for the very first time, the biggest question is, can there be any going back?
You’re going to want to have your brown paper handy if buying this new edition, because it has one of the most gosh-awful covers imaginable. Hard to have people take you seriously when you’re seen with this in your hands!
But the contents are prime, nicely produced and easy to read, with very few (if any?) typos. Whoever reset this did a grand job, and this reader thanks you!
I hope some more Ursula Blooms are forthcoming from this source. I see that Corazon has also republished Bloom’s 1959 wartime memoir (and that would be the First World War, by the way), Youth at the Gate, which I am about to order, because I know it will be readable, and likely wryly funny, if Bloom’s fictional voice remains the same for her reminiscences. Again, Corazon’s cover art leaves something to be desired, but I guess we should be grateful for what’s inside, instead of griping about appearances.
Here’s something extra, a link to a 1974 mini-documentary on Ursula Bloom produced by the BBC. Watch it, it’s a mere 4 minutes long, and it’s rather fascinating to see our author typing away at full speed, producing some of those 5000 eminently saleable words per day!
From the East Anglia Film Archive’s link page:
Author Ursula Bloom sits at her writing desk tapping away on a typewriter, opening this profile of her life and career with old photographs and newly filmed material. Beginning with her extensive bibliography, which ranges from romance novels to biographies, the report highlights her many non-de-plumes, including Mary Essex, Sheila Burns and Lozania Prole, and her prolific output, often averaging 5,000 words a day and easily able to complete a novel within three weeks.
The daughter of a parson who didn’t believe in school-based education, Bloom got an early start on her career, running a children’s magazine at age 10, and had a brief career as a cinema pianist before marrying a wealthy barrister and guards officer. Following his death during the influenza epidemic of 1918, Bloom and her young son continued living in the exclusive seaside resort of Frinton, the summer playground of the rich and famous during the 1920s. During this time she broke into journalism with a successful career as a court reporter, before meeting her second husband, naval lieutenant Charles Robinson Gower, in 1925. Fifty years later, the couple are shown in their sitting room, still happily married, both claiming it was the ‘best thing they ever did’.
Leaves & Pages 