With Malice Toward Some

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Margaret Halsey was in her mid-20s when she and her college professor husband exchanged their active New York life for a year’s engagement with a small English college in sleepy Devonshire.  ith Malice Toward Some is the journal she kept during most of that year in 1935. 

Halsey is a brash, judgmental and snobbish wise-ass, and thoroughly entertaining as she travels through England, Scandinavia and mainland Europe before settling in Devon.  And despite the acerbic wit she uses to describe them, the affection she develops for her village neighbors shines through.

She is a word nerd’s true friend.  She employs a rich vocabulary, and she paints delightful word pictures, such as expecting the Maid of the Mist to emerge from one gentleman’s flowing white mustache. 

Halsey is one of my favorite authors.  With Malice Toward Some is the main reason why.

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Quotes

The soup, thin and dark and utterly savorless, tasted as if it had been drained out of the umbrella stand.

Englishwomen’s shoes look as if they had been made by someone who had often heard shoes described but had never seen any.

Living in England, provincial England, must be like being married to a stupid but exquisitely beautiful wife.

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