The Oaken Heart
The Story of an English Village at War
World War II on the home front: “Fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or James Herriot will enjoy this unique historical account.” —Library Journal
This remarkable firsthand account—from the acclaimed Golden Age mystery author—was written to let people know how the Second World War affected ordinary English country people. The Oaken Heart is Margery Allingham’s tribute to the resiliency and determination of the people of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, the Essex village where she lived and nicknamed “Auburn” in her manuscript.
Allingham, already a successful mystery author in 1939, was at work on the Albert Campion novel Traitor’s Purse. The first hint of war was felt in the alarm of a radio announcer’s voice, and Allingham put down her pen as her peaceful corner of the world braced for sending its men into battle, and even possible invasion. As villagers rallied around the cause—supporting each other and their country—Allingham found herself acting as the local billeting officer and first aid organizer. She writes of the sacrifices of farmers, the mistrust of politics, the grim acceptance of rationing, the bombing of London. And through it all, the never-ending hope for peace.
The Oaken Heart captures the personal and universal toll of war, far from the front lines, written by a woman whose own quest for justice jumped from the page to the streets where she lived.
“Engrossing and moving.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Her record of the events and people of this fraught wartime period is rendered with the skill found in the best of her fictional writing . . . remains an insight into another facet of a remarkable talent.” —Crime Time
Margery Allingham, born in 1904 to Emily and Herbert Allingham, was an esteemed English novelist, author, and editor of Christian Globe and the New London Journal. Considered one of the four “Queens of Crime” from the golden age of detective fiction, Allingham began writing stories and plays at a young age and published her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, at 19. She later studied drama and speech training at Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Allingham is best known for her character Albert Campion, a sleuth first introduced in The Crime of Black Dudley. Campion was featured in seventeen subsequent novels, and even more short stories. Allingham continued to write until her death on June 30, 1966.
