Published: 2003
You're a Brick, Angela! has become a standard reference book for girls' fiction since it was first published in 1976.
A revised edition was published in paperback in 1986, and we are now delighted, and privileged, to publish a new edition, with a new introduction by the authors and many more illustrations.
Reviews
- "Mary Cadogan and Pat Craig hold the keys to a lost and lovely world, full of excitement and adventure, laughter and tears. They are the best guides: intelligent, articulate, wonderfully knowledgeable, amusing and amused. You're a Brick, Angela! is my kind of book and these are my kind of companions. Yes! I am loving this book."
- Giles Brandreth
- Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig take their readers on a fascinating journey through over a century of writing for girls. I am a bloke and I loved it.
- Sir Tim Rice
- A ground-breaking survey when first published in 1976, You're A Brick, Angela! is still essential reading today for anyone interested in girls' fiction of the past two centuries.
- This new edition by Girls Gone By is beautifully produced and contains many new illustrations. The book is impressively researched, and, while readers may sometimes disagree with the forthright opinions expressed by the Cadogan/Craig critics, they will be unfailingly interested and entertained.
- Helen McClelland
- This seminal work, first published in 1976, was the first book to deal with Girls' Literature in depth and at length. Not having read it for ten years, I decided that, unlike many reviewers, I must re-read it. The storm raging around me (winds of 60mph!) was forgotten, as was the discomfort of a Land Rover, as I read from cover to cover. If possible, it is better than it was on my first reading over twenty years ago suggested! Errors corrected, addenda included, facts updated, and now profusely illustrated, this book, apart from being 'readable', makes one realise that it is impossible to distinguish between literary history and social history.
- Whether literature drives social change or social change forces a new approach to literature is hard to say; but, without doubt the authors are correct to have made this book an examination of both. The authors decided that history and literature are so intertwined that they had to take this approach. And, it works as an enthralling account of both.
- The humour, scholarship, attention to detail, and the sheer enjoyability of the book makes it certain that some academics will, yet again, condemn it - after all it is lucid, fun, accurate, and as important today as it was when first it was printed. Talking to an M.A. student the other day, she told me that this was the first book she read in preparing her dissertation. While not as germane to my dissertation as to hers, it was, nonetheless, a vital work for me to read in the writing of my dissertation about Frank Richards.
- It is great fun to play a parlour game with oneself - who wrote which section. Talking to Mary the other day, I was pleased to have, so far, guessed correctly! In short, this book is an essential for all students of literature - no matter what branch. If you don't have a copy - buy one! If you have the first edition, consider (most seriously) updating your library with this one."
- Peter McCall, Editor, The Friars' Chronicle