Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, by Winifred Watson

Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, by Winifred Watson

a review by Rich Horton

This book has been on my radar for a while. It fits in a category I take considerable interest in: popular fiction of the first half of the 20th Century, for one thing. It's quite highly regarded by those who have read it. And I have had numerous recommendations from people I trust: first and foremost, Hyson Concepcion, but also Scott Thompson of the Furrowed Middlebrow blog. Several other people have echoed these recommendations in comments. So I bought a copy of the book, and put it right on top of my TBR pile, and there it stayed for a few weeks while I read a few other books due to various obligations. And just this past weekend, at the science fiction convention Confluence, I had a nice long talk with the writer Timons Esaias, and we realized we both have an interest in -- women writers of the first half of the 20th Century. And Timons asked -- "Have you read Winifred Watson's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day?" I mean, I was going to read it promptly anyway, but that was a delightful serendipitous confirmation.

My edition is the Persephone Books paperback from 2000, with an introduction by Henrietta Twycross-Martin. This edition has an elegant cover in all grey except for the title/author block, though Persephone reissued it in 2008 with the illustrated cover shown above. (I have a couple of those all grey Persephone editions and I find that presentation quite nice.) The novel, Watson's third, was first published in 1938 by Methuen. The Persephone edition's text seems to have reproduced the pages from the first edition, which was illustrated nicely by Mary Thompson. Though Watson was apparently a somewhat sucessful writer in her day, and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was evidently her most popular book, I could not find a copy of the earlier editions. I'll go into detail about Watson's life and career after touching on the novel.

Miss Pettigrew is a woman of 40 or so, quite poor, and taking jobs as a governess to make ends meet. As the story opens, at 9:15 AM, she is just entering the employment office, for she needs a new position. She doesn't think she's a very good governess, and she certainly doesn't enjoy her work, but the only alternative is the workhouse. The agency gives her the address of a Miss LaFosse, who is looking for a nursery governess, and Miss Pettigrew makes her way to Miss LaFosse's apartment.

On arriving, she finds a very pretty young woman, rather startled to see her, and apparently afraid she was someone else. And before long a young man emerges from the bedroom. Miss Pettigrew is rather taken aback -- and there is no sign of a nursery or a child -- but soon Miss LaFosse -- Delysia -- is asking for her help in shooing away this young man, Phil, because Miss LaFosse's other lover, Nick, is about to come over, and he is a dangerous man. Before long Miss Pettigrew has been enlisted by Delysia for more help with her somewhat disorganized social life. It turns out that Delysia has another lover, Michael, who doesn't have Phil's advantages (being willing to bankroll a show with Delysia as the star) or Nick's advantages (being devastatingly handsome and also paying Delysia's rent.) But Michael is willing to marry Miss La Fosse, and seems a better person anyway, except for the part about just getting out of jail.

So the novel continues, over the course of a day, as Miss Pettigrew also meets Delysia's hairdresser, Edythe Dubarry, and continues to help both women out of scrapes while herself being introduced to bohemian life, getting a makeover and wearing a nice dress, drinking, going to a night club, etc. It's a very light-hearted novel, and very funny, and if it's totally implausible who cares? Miss Pettigrew, all the while worrying about where Miss LaFosse's children might be and what will happen when she realizes Miss Pettigrew is just a governess, has the time of her life, and it would be fair to say that she and Delysia each learn (not in any heavy-handed way) some useful lessons from the other. The book is a thoroughgoing delight.

Winifred Watson (married name Pickering) was born in 1906 near Newcastle, and lived there most of her life. She published her first novel in 1935, Fell Top, and published five more through 1943, then stopped writing. She married in 1936, and her husband was apparently very supportive of her writing, but in 1943, the top floor of the house they were living in was hit by a bomb. She had by sheer luck taken her fussy baby downstairs just before. The house being unlivable, she had to move in with her mother-in-law, and conditions were simply not conducive to writing, and even after the War she never returned to it, despite encouragement from her husband and son.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was her third written novel, but, curiously, it was the fourth published, as Methuen originally rejected it. Her first two novels were good sellers, and both were romantic dramas set in rural areas near Newcastle, and her publishers wanted more of the same. She felt strongly about Miss Pettigrew, and made a deal -- she'd write another book like the one they wanted, but after that came out they would publish Miss Pettigrew -- and Watson's instincts about the book proved correct.

Before long all her books were out of print, and by the 1990s were all but forgotten. But Persephone -- one of a few imprints devoted to rescuing worthy books by forgetten women writers -- had asked for reader suggestions for books to reprint; and Henriette Twycross-Martin suggested Miss Pettigrew -- her mother's favorite novel, and a novel she too loved. Persephone's editors loved the book too, and they suggested that Twycross-Martin write the introduction -- and then they found that Winifred Watson was still living in Newcastle, then some 93 years old. All these details, I should add, are gleaned from Twycross-Martin's excellent introduction. Watson was able to see her novel reprinted, and widely praised, before her death at age 95 in 2002. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was made into an apparently pretty good movie in 2008, starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams (who seem excellent choices to play Miss Pettigrew and Delysia LaFosse, respectively.)