Monica Dickens

Chronicle of a Working Life is an omnibus of three classic books by Charles Dickens's great-granddaughter, Monica Dickens. Amusing, revealing and witty One Pair of Hands, One Pair of Feet, and My Turn to Make the Tea give a wonderful evocation of the post-war years of the twenties and thirties. 'Surely,' I thought, 'there's something more to life than just going to parties that one doesn't enjoy, with people one doesn't even like?' So begins Monica Dickens's first career move as, bored of being a debutante, she is let loose on series of unsuspecting upper-class employers as a cook-general in One Pair of Hands. Cooking, cleaning and telling all in this deliciously funny memoir, written at the age of twenty-two, this was her first book. One Pair of Feet continues her adventures when she recounts her first, and only, year of training to be a nurse, and My Turn to Make the Tea completes the trilogy by telling of her time as a very junior, very enthusiastic reporter on a local newspaper.

Published in 1940, this famous author's first novel is a delightful description of a young girl's life in the 1039s.