Dollie Takes Charge

There can be few more satisfying books to find in a holiday cottage than Dollie Takes Charge. It has been our constant companion for many weeks of summer jollity and I was pleased to find that she is still serving her original useful purpose when I visited today. They tell us that a novel should be judged by its ability to grab you from the first moment and there can be few greater openings than this:

"I wonder?" Dollie said.
 And as she said it, all her dimples showed.
There was no one to look at her, as she sat bunched in what she called "the window box" of her own private den beneath the gable. If there had been, they would most likely have guessed Dollie as "sixteen - a rather young sixteen." She wore an old grey ulster, into which she had slipped for warmth; the day was mid-December, and though her "den" possessed a stove, Dollie was spairing in her use of it. Over her shoulder fell a glorious rope of plaited golden hair, which she was wont to "let down for a rest," at times of safe seclusion like the present.

With what style Queenie Scott Hopper introduces us to her heroine; with what economy of phrasing; with what idosynchratic punctuation: one is left to wonder what the Booker judges would make of such prose if they were faced with it today. Truly a masterpiece. Eat your heart out Charles Dickens.