Not So Quiet . . .
$27.30
- Paperback
208 pages
- Release Date
5 January 2027
Summary
Discover your new favourite forgotten classics with the Mermaid collection - No 11: Helen Zenna Smith’s Not So Quiet … with a foreword by Alice Winn
Nell Smith is one of England’s ‘Splendid Daughters’, women abroad doing their bit in WWI. At 21, she pays for the privilege of driving an ambulance to ferry the wounded between the front line and hospital.
Facing constant shellfire, half frozen, fed on slop, and enduring the lashing tongue of commandant ‘Mrs Bitch’, Nell and her s…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781405997065 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1405997060 |
| Author: | Helen Zenna Smith |
| Publisher: | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Imprint: | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 208 |
| Release Date: | 5 January 2027 |
| Weight: | 192g |
| Dimensions: | 15mm x 129mm x 196mm |
| Series: | The Mermaid Collection |
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Critics Review
A bittersweet feminist antiwar novel … Brilliantly written, and cleverly mixing humour with bitterness * Library Journal *
‘Intriguing … vividly and impressionistically tells of the author’s tour of duty in France. One welcomes its return to print * William Boyd, New York Times *
The reader is immediately gripped by its furious, indignant power * Chicago Sun-Time *
A powerful condemnation of war and the societies that glamorise it * Kirkus Reviews *
Helen Zenna Smith
Helen Zenna Smith was the pseudonym of Evadne Price. Born Eva Grace Price in 1888, she later claimed to have been born at sea while her parents were traveling.
In her early twenties, Price moved to London and New York in search of work. She eventually returned to England, divorced her first husband, and began a career on the stage. She married again and later turned to journalism.
Price began writing short comic fiction, most notably the Jane Turpin stories, which were compared to the popular “Just William” series but featured a female protagonist.
Her most famous work, Not So Quiet …, was initially conceived as a satire of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. However, Price found the idea distasteful and instead drew inspiration from the diaries of a friend to write her story about a female ambulance driver. The book was an immediate success.
Price also wrote over a hundred thrillers and romances under her own name and worked as a television astrologer. She passed away in Sydney in 1985.
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