Just so you know what the deal is: this is a very geeky biography of a little-known author whose biographical details are sparse. Her own stated opinion was "There is so little to tell about me ... so little that can be told." Nevetheless, she wrote about what she knew and places she had visited, and her works abound with (to me) fascinating regional, cultural and geographical detail: Isle of Wight locations and dialect, the dangerous technicalities of driving a heavy-horse wagon, the Indian Rebellion, the sighting of Donati's comet, the culture of Menton (a French winter resort) in the Edwardian era, and much more. It's a book with the mindset of JSBlog: to digress into anything - Maxwell Gray, her works, and contemporary reviews - that seems pertinent and interesting.
Meanwhile, A Wren-like Note (www.maxwellgray.co.uk) is the support site for the book. But it's turning out to be a little bit more: a website and weblog to celebrate Maxwell Gray, and provide a central focus for finding her works online.
- Ray