Review of Marjorie Barnard and M. Barnard Eldershaw by Louise E. Rorabacher

Abstract

Neither M. Barnard Eldershaw nor Marjorie Barnard seems to me to emerge from this study as a writer of notably enlarged stature; the outlines and dimensions are left much as we had already learned to perceive them. A good deal of detail (biographical and critical), however, is filled in affectionately and accurately, and for that we should be genuinely grateful. On the last page of her study (p. 177), Rorabacher characterizes her subjects' literary achievement as 'a secure if modest pedestal from which to face the ages'. For her own part, she has provided a similar vantage point from which to view the lives and writings of Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw.