Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fell Top | 1935 | Winifred Watson | Buy |
| 2 | Odd Shoes | 1936 | Winifred Watson | Buy |
| 3 | Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day | 1937 | Winifred Watson | Buy |
| 4 | Leave and Bequeath | 1943 | Winifred Watson | N/A |
Winifred Watson’s four novels were all published within an eight-year span, from 1935 to 1943. Her first two books, Fell Top and Odd Shoes, are dramas set in the English countryside. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, her third novel, was a deliberate change of pace. Watson wanted to write something light and fun, and the result is a comedy about a dowdy governess who accidentally falls into the glamorous world of a London nightclub singer.
Miss Pettigrew was an immediate success on both sides of the Atlantic. Watson’s final novel, Leave and Bequeath, came out in 1943, and then she stopped writing fiction altogether. The war and family life took over. It was not until Persephone Books reprinted Miss Pettigrew in 2000 that readers rediscovered her work, and the 2008 film cemented the book’s place as a minor classic of 1930s British comedy.