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Review
"'Priestley was a grand writer... we should still listen to him, before time runs out. His return to our bookshelves will give people this opportunity. I am extremely pleased an effort is being made to re-kindle interest in this great writer.' Beryl Bainbridge"
Product Description
In 2006, Great Northern Books launched a new series of books under the title "Rediscovering Priestley" with the aim of bringing back into print the fiction work of one of the 20th century's greatest writers, J.B. Priestley. The first book in this series of beautifully produced collectors' editions was "Bright Day", which received accolades from some of the country's leading writers and political figures including Tony Benn, Margaret Drabble, Michael Foot, Beryl Bainbridge, Alan Bennett, Barry Cryer and many others. Not only was it a creative and critical success but also achieved high levels of sales through retail outlets across the country and online. This success is now to be repeated with the publication of a second title - also superbly designed, illustrated and bound - Priestley's first major non-fiction success, "The Good Companions", originally published in 1929. As with "Bright Day", this new book will contain biographical details, images and information on the music hall scene of the 1920s, to enable the reader to place the novel in its historical context. "The Good Companions", will be eagerly sought after by all those who bought "Bright Day" as well as the many thousands of lovers of Priestley's work and appreciators of classic literature across the world.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an exquisite adorable tale of a theatre troupe travelling England in the first half of the twentieth century. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a soppy sentimental book, what I mean by my adjectives is merely that each character is so beautifully carved that they leap off the page and into your heart the instant you read of them. Again that sounds far more hideous than it is, in reality this is a nice book, one in which you truly wish each and every character well, and hold your breath in case anything nasty should befall them, but don't worry as in the best theatre traditions it'll all be alright on the night. Although very long I'm sure by the last page you will be wishing it was twice the length. In my opinion this book was Priestley's finest hour.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The other reviewers have explained the appeal of this book very well. It is now a period piece. There can only be very few readers alive now who can remember the concert parties and pierrot troupes that slogged their way round the variety halls and end of the pier theatres of Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. I recall my late father telling me that he remembered concert parties of precisely the kind described by J B Priesltey coming to perform on Shanklin and Sandown Piers in the 1930s. He added that they were all uniformly absolutely hopeless and awful but let's forget about that.
This book is clearly set after the beginning of broadcasting and during a period of economic depression so I guess Mr J B Priestley intended readers who read the book when it came out (1929) to regard it as a contemporary story. It was a huge success at the time and when I first read it many years ago I became delightfully immersed in the lives of the three main characters and their nomadic temporary hosts (The Dinkey Doos/Good Companions). We meet well drawn good hearted characters who are fully prersented with all their many qualities and foibles affectionately painted by the author for the pleasure of his readers. As they traverse the England of the Great Depression these latterday secular pilgrims witness the gamut of English society as Priestley knew it. There is no venom in Priestley's social observations on this occasion (c.f. his later work)- although cinema owners get a mild moral drubbing. Here we are focusing on the whimsical and the comical and the absurd. Others will correct me if I am wrong but I think that just before writing The Good Companions J B Priestley undertook a journey all round the UK and produced a serious book of journalism/travel writing about the suffering and privations of the poor during the depression. In the Good Companions he uses the knowledge of the different cities and towns and regions of England that he gained on that journey but he uses it to a gentle and comic effect.
The book is in many ways a comic masterpiece and this handsome hardback edition contains well justified brief essays of praise for the book from contemporary comic writers. For some tastes the book may at times seem to have too rich a streak of sentimentality but for me at least the lightness of tone and the pace of the story telling never allows the book to become too sickly sweet.
I strongly recommend the book to one and all.
In finality I would just put a word in to whoever owns the rights to a 1980 TV musical dramatisation made by Yorkshire Television. You are sitting on a little gem of a TV series and whilst you will never get the DVD sales of a Lost or a Dr Who, you will do very respectably indeed if you issue the series on DVD.
This book is clearly set after the beginning of broadcasting and during a period of economic depression so I guess Mr J B Priestley intended readers who read the book when it came out (1929) to regard it as a contemporary story. It was a huge success at the time and when I first read it many years ago I became delightfully immersed in the lives of the three main characters and their nomadic temporary hosts (The Dinkey Doos/Good Companions). We meet well drawn good hearted characters who are fully prersented with all their many qualities and foibles affectionately painted by the author for the pleasure of his readers. As they traverse the England of the Great Depression these latterday secular pilgrims witness the gamut of English society as Priestley knew it. There is no venom in Priestley's social observations on this occasion (c.f. his later work)- although cinema owners get a mild moral drubbing. Here we are focusing on the whimsical and the comical and the absurd. Others will correct me if I am wrong but I think that just before writing The Good Companions J B Priestley undertook a journey all round the UK and produced a serious book of journalism/travel writing about the suffering and privations of the poor during the depression. In the Good Companions he uses the knowledge of the different cities and towns and regions of England that he gained on that journey but he uses it to a gentle and comic effect.
The book is in many ways a comic masterpiece and this handsome hardback edition contains well justified brief essays of praise for the book from contemporary comic writers. For some tastes the book may at times seem to have too rich a streak of sentimentality but for me at least the lightness of tone and the pace of the story telling never allows the book to become too sickly sweet.
I strongly recommend the book to one and all.
In finality I would just put a word in to whoever owns the rights to a 1980 TV musical dramatisation made by Yorkshire Television. You are sitting on a little gem of a TV series and whilst you will never get the DVD sales of a Lost or a Dr Who, you will do very respectably indeed if you issue the series on DVD.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
J B Priestley's celebrated and immensely successful award-winning novel, first published in 1929, has recently enjoyed a new lease of life with its re-issue, in an enhanced format, by Great Northern Books; the first professional revival, by the BBC, of the 1974 musical version with songs by Andre Previn and Johnny Mercer; the launch of yet another musical version; and a recent repeat, on BBC Radio 7, of the 2002 BBC Radio 4 adaptation. Now comes this welcome, if abridged (although 7 hours long), audiobook version in which the reader is Bingley-born Rodney Bewes (of The Likely Lads fame). The novel recounts the adventures of a touring concert party, The Dinky Doos, which renames itself The Good Companions. But this is by way of being the backdrop to a tale about three disparate characters : Elizabeth Trant, a young-to-middle-aged spinster from a Cotswold village, Inigo Jollifant, a piano-playing schoolmaster from the Fen Country, and Jess Oakroyd, a joiner from the West Riding town of Bruddersford, who go 'on the road' to escape their stifling backgrounds and seek a new and liberating way of life. Although the overall tone of the novel is optimistic the darker side of England in the Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s is not forgotten. After a somewhat muted start Rodney Bewes quickly gets into his stride and takes on the many characters in the novel with aplomb. There are useful contributions from Tom Priestley, the author's father and President of The J B Priestley Society and a suitably 1920s-sounding dance tune as a recurring musical theme. The packaging leaves something to be desired, however : there is no accompanying booklet and not even a list of tracks, CD by CD, with narrative cues, such as would enable extracts to be accessed quickly.
All the other reviews of this product refer to the book itself, not to the audiobook version. The accompanying illustration is inaccurate : the cover is completely different and there are 6 CDs, not 4.
All the other reviews of this product refer to the book itself, not to the audiobook version. The accompanying illustration is inaccurate : the cover is completely different and there are 6 CDs, not 4.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very good reading of an excellent book
Rodney Bewes makes a very good fist of reading Priestley's masterpiece. The way he voices the various characters is first rate (I particularly liked the elongated vowels of Morton... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Graham R. Hill
Window into a vanished world
Like all the best books I found this by accident. I knew Priestley was a playwrite and essayist, but didn't know that had written novels until coming across an old copy of The Good... Read more
Published 5 months ago by bayman15
Good Companions
This book was bought for a friend who had searched book shops for it, so is now highly delighted that he can enjoy a good read
Published 6 months ago by Mrs. Ruth Wilkinson
old favorite
Good companions, is an old classic very much in the style of its era. Well worth a walk down memory lane for nostalgic readers.
Published 8 months ago by old softy
Where was the editor?
I believe that this book was a 'publishing phenomenon' when it first came out in the 1930s. Priestly's success with it was extra-ordinary. But why? The book goes on and on. Read more
Published 10 months ago by richteafinger
A spectrum of characters and places
I read this book in 1980, often to the smell of our next door neighbours burning their parquet flooring in their fireplace. The book was a very good read. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Sir John Chester
The Good Companions
An excellent book. The characters are all so real. The are from different parts of England and from different social backgrounds and yet their stories interlink without effort. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Rozlyn
Priestley's Good Companions
What a fabulous romp of a book! It was like reading a more modern version of Dickens. The characters were brilliant - amusing, entertaining, tragic - all life was there. Read more
Published 22 months ago by J. Almy
Good old days
A beautifully written, well characterised and accessible book which leaves you feeling good after reading it. A graphic glimpse of a bygone age. Treat yourself!
Published on 26 July 2009 by Billy Millside
Read this book when you've lost faith with mankind
I forget who said that there were two types of people in the world, those that have read "The Good Companions" and those that have not!
Published on 15 Jun 2009 by C. Etherington
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