School House in the Wind

The books are full of delights - evocations of the landscape in Cornwall, of the Malvern Hills and the Bredon County. And her insights into the educational system in which she taught, with occasional therapeutic breaks, for forty or so years are fascinating. How she would have hated the Gradgrind and Bounderby ethos of current education. The books create a picture of a character talented, loveable and essentially wise.

* Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries *

There is much here to reflect upon, about gender, identity, work and women's lives. But that is only part of the story. Treneer writes with extraordinary sensitivity about her childhood in Cornwall, and about the countryside and natural history wherever she lived and worked. She has a sharp eye for detail, and an irreverent sense of humour. Her story is absorbing, and deserves a wider audience.

* Social History Bulletin *

Anne Treneer was the last of the great stylists among Cornish authors writing in English. She takes her place with "Q" and A.L. Rowse at the high water mark of good writing. She is a mistress of the arresting phrase, the happy shaft of wit, the illuminating picture of life around her, continually celebrating the Cornwall she knew and loved.

* Cornish World *

Anne Treneer's books have been out of print for too long. Her autobiography is a celebration-of Cornwall, of a love of life and literature, of the joy of education, of everything that is positive and pleasurable-and a fine example of the craft of the wordsmith which makes a thoughtfully written book deceptively easy to read.

* CALH Newsletter *

. . . Some of the best writing about Cornwall which has ever been published, her descriptions surging with the shape and colour of the land itself . . .

 

* Devon Li