Shared Histories

An intimate portrait—warts and all—of high society in London and Richmond before, during, and after the Second World War. Through the lens of an absorbing correspondence between mother and daughter, Angela Potter offers an unflinching look at the efforts of Anglo-American elites during this turbulent era to hold on to a world fast slipping between their fingers. Edited with loving care and scholarly rigor, these letters vividly recreate a transformative moment in North Atlantic history, one that has left an indelible imprint on our own time.

* author of Reconstructing the Household: Families, Sex, and the Law in the Nineteenth-Century South *

A compelling correspondence with the magnetism and immediacy of an engaging historical novel. That Virginia D. Reynolds was a cousin-once-removed of the poet Emily Dickinson (her great-grandfather Samuel Fowler Dickinson was Emily's grandfather), adds zest to the correspondence, for Mrs. Reynolds possesses the notable frankness that characterized certain members of the Dickinson family. Some of her opinions and attitudes are sure to shock a modern reader. For those enticed by World War II, or by the literature of mother/daughter relationships, here is an engaging perspective you won't want to miss.

* coauthor of The Dickinsons of Amherst *

Shared Histories is rich with insights into American and British social and political life that will engage and inform both historians and general readers interested in the period. Textbooks and monographs rarely capture the experience of war on the home front in such an evocative and personal way as these letters do.

* Deputy Director, The Library of Virginia *

[T]he collection presents a vivid and coherent picture of their authors, their locales, and their tumultuous world.

A vivid picture of two fascinating women who wrote candidly about their personal lives and the historical events swirling about them.

Their letters provide a rare example of correspondence between civilian family members on both sides of the Atlantic during the Second World War, as well as a record of a particular class at a time of great change (1929–1966). And they are entertaining . . . [an] excellently informative introduction . . . but such seeming contradictions are part of the pleasure of Shared Histories, which portrays another era so vividly, and raises questions along the way.

Provides correspondence at its best . . . Shared Histories holds value far beyond the usual family portraits, making it a top pick.