Navy cloth binding with a gilt title on the spine and front board.

We provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available. 

•          Note: This book carries a £5.00 discount to those that subscribe to the F.B.A. mailing list

For decades this book was a best seller. Today, few know of this writer. This is a pity because her work greatly enhances our understanding of men and women. 

Excerpt from The Religion of Evelyn Hastings:

‘It was early yet; there was no one about in the little sleepy seaside town. The street was quite empty, full of dancing sunlight, and the blue sea lay sparkling at the end of it. She was eager, with all the excitement of the town child, to get to work at the edge of the water. She would build a castle and there should be a deep ditch around, dug by her own large new spade. She reached the end of the street, Wholly absorbed in her plans for the morning’s labours, and clambered up a low stone wall to get on the parade. There was a slope on to it, a little farther on, but Evelyn was too eager to get to her play to use that, and, being sound and strong and healthy, she enjoyed scrambling over the wall. 

There were no living beings on the parade. She was the first out apparently.’

A scarce edition from Frost Book’s large Victoria Cross collection. These books are historical and cultural gems. 

Annie Sophie Cory (Victoria Cross) comes from a literary family encouraged by her father who also propelled Kipling to international fame! 

Victoria Cross is one of several pen names used by Annie Sophie Cory. She was the daughter of a British Army Colonel stationed in the Punjab city of Lahore, Pakistan. Growing up at the end of the British Raj she would have had firsthand experience with people of many races, religions and colors. Her short stories may heighten the romance of these cultures, but they tend to ring true or at least consistent with the cultures as portrayed in the 1001 Nights. Likely her use of the pen name is a direct reference to the Victoria Cross, the highest medal that can be awarded in the British Military Service.

Many modern readers will have difficulty with Victoria Cross’s work. They are of a time when women became sexually active at the direction of older men and at an age we would not continence. This is one of the many problems a modern reader may experience. If you can read them in context they can still be frustrating. Women are too often too compliant and usually have no sense of their own power over themselves. Still I enjoyed the writing. There is something of a modern 1001 Nights type atmosphere that helped me to enjoy a world before the feminist movement.

NOTE: This is an original  book from the library gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold LANG. Note: Jack founded the Michelin Guide ‘Midsummer House’- Cambridge’s paramount restaurant. This dining experience is hidden amongst the grassy pastures and grazing cattle of Midsummer Common and perched on the banks of the River Cam. The Midsummer House experience is imaginatively curated to delight and amaze, so the surprise set menu changes regularly and is ‘Midsummer’s’ playground to showcase.

In 2008, Jack was one of the co-founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, alongside other members of the Department, and acted as the Foundation’s Chair. The project’s original goals were modest: to build and distribute low-cost computers for prospective applicants to our Computer Science degree. Initially the project was a “success disaster”, as Jack would say, as demand far outstripped the low-scale manufacturing plans. Ultimately the Raspberry Pi became the UK’s most successful computer with more than 60 million sold to date. Jack was drawn to the educational possibilities of the Raspberry Pi, its potential uses in emerging economies and the way it could support self-directed learning.