December 2009 Good Housekeeping selection.
‘I have met a boy I like very much but he has a very odd surname….He has asked me to go steady with him but I can’t help thinking my married name would be Mrs Gotobed if we got married. Am I silly?’ Luckily Valentine magazine came to the rescue of this anxious 60s singleton with the reassurance of not to worry, it is a ‘very old and well-connected English name’.
Spanning a century (1850-1950) of Dear…whoever agony aunts from a host of women’s magazines, this collection of earnest queries and unequivocal advice on everything from rebellious teenagers and shyness to the importance of doing rolling exercises on the floor and dealing with cads and bounders (and any overlap there might be between the two). A nice bit of socio-historical fun.
| Primary Genre | Non-Fiction Books of the Month |
A collection of the funniest – and most bizarre – agony aunts' advice from the 1850s to the 1960s
Dear Ta-ra-ra,
It surprises us to find that a girl sufficiently educated to write and spell well should be so deplorably ignorant of the common rules of society to think that she may go out alone with a young man in his canoe.
Girl's Own Paper, 1895
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Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe is a fascinating glimpse into our social past and harks back to a time when agony aunts played a pivotal role in society, advising men and women on love, sex, relationships and other taboo subjects.
From advice on the immorality of reading a crime novel or riding a bicycle to Sunday school, to tips on beauty, etiquette and how to make a boy into a man, this wonderful book is a slap in the face for everyone accustomed to the politically correct advice of today, and is a tribute to the manners of the past that will make you grateful times have moved on.
Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe: Words of Wisdom from the Golden Age of Agony Aunts features in the following genres: Non-Fiction Books of the Month, Recommendations
Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe: Words of Wisdom from the Golden Age of Agony Aunts is available in Hardback
Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe: Words of Wisdom from the Golden Age of Agony Aunts was written by Tanith Carey and published by Boxtree Ltd an imprint of Pan Macmillan