Emily Who?

     I love travel writing and I love well-written humor. I found both in the books of Emily Kimbrough.

      Emily (I can't call her Ms Kimbrough; she's been one of my "kinsmen of the shelf" -- to quote another Emily -- for far too long) was born in Muncie, Indiana in 1899 and died in Manhattan in 1989. She is perhaps best known in the book lovers' world as having co-authored, with actress Cornelia Otis Skinner, the delightful 1942 memoir Our Hearts were Young and Gay, which recounts their misadventures as young women on their first trip abroad in the early '20s. I emitted many a guffaw when I first read it, and subsequent readings have been just as pleasurable. This popular book inspired a film (1944) starring Gail Russell and Diana Lynn, the screenplay of which Emily and Cornelia collaborated on with Sheridan Gibney. Emily also wrote the book's amusing sequel, We Followed Our Hearts to Hollywood, relating Cornelia's and her experiences working on the film.

     It wasn't Our Hearts were Young and Gay, however, that introduced me to Emily; it was one of her later books, Pleasure by the Busload, which I stumbled upon during my very first visit to the legendary Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon. The book's dustjacket blurb described it as a humorous account of a Volkswagen van trip in Greece that Emily took with some friends, among whom was the renowned Greek concert pianist Gina Bachauer. Being a great fan of Bachauer, I was naturally intrigued and bought the book on the spot. It's been twelve years since I read it, and I only read it once; my memory being the rusty sieve it is, I can't recall details, but I do recall having loved it and being eager to find more of Emily's books, all of which are memoirs. You can imagine how pleased I was to find several of them together on the bottom shelf of the dimly lit back room of a dusty antiquarian bookshop in San Antonio. All the books were in good shape and still had their dustjackets. Some other titles I purchased online.

     Aside from the fact that I love travel writing, especially about Europe, the main appeal of Emily's books is Emily herself. Here is a middle-aged, very proper woman, portrayed in the books' cartoon-like line drawings with hair in a demure bun, taking these seemingly carefee trips with her friends but finding herself in one comical situation after another, and writing about them with such a winning combination of wit, wryness, self-deprecation, and obvious intelligence. Her writing style brings to mind a grammatically mindful school marm who unknowingly has a large portion of slip showing from beneath her skirt.

     Unfortunately, the only one of Emily's books in print today is Our Hearts were Young and Gay. However, most of them, because they were so widely read in their day, can easily be found through the internet. My favorite online source for buying used books is AddAll. It searches Abebooks, Alibris, Amazon, etc. and many independents (including Powell's), 24 in all.

Here is a list of Emily Kimbrough's titles:

Our Hearts were Young and Gay (with Cornelia Otis Skinner)
Forty Plus and Fancy Free - Italy and England, including Queen Elizabeth's coronation
Floating Island - a barge trip on the canals in France
So Near and Yet So Far - New Orleans
We Followed Our Hearts to Hollywood
How Dear to My Heart
Now and Then
Time Enough - a barge trip on the river Shannon
Forever Old, Forever New
It Gives Me Great Pleasure - her experiences as a public speaker
Water, Water Everywhere - Aegean Islands, Yugoslavia, Paris, London
Pleasure by the Busload
The Innocents from Indiana
Through Charley's Door - her first job, at the original Marshall Field's
Better than Oceans
And a Right Good Crew - a barge trip on England's canals