Ronald Blythe, the author of Akenfield, calls this book ‘astonishing’. Margery Allingham was living quietly in her Essex village, writing a novel a year and coping with the extravagances of an irresponsible household. Then the war came. Suddenly the house was an Air Raid Wardens’ post and a First Aid centre and the childless Margery found herself responsible for 275 East London evacuees in a rural community of little more than 600 people. The Oaken Heart was written in the autumn of 1940, when the Battle of Britain gave way to the London Blitz. Bombs fell, even on the Essex countryside. By the time she had finished, in February 1941, her friends and family had gone away to fight and only her ‘insane optimism’ helped her to believe that they would ever return.

This new edition is published in association with the Margery Allingham Society. It contains previously unpublished diaries and letters, as well as contributions from ‘sweet Auburn’, the village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy.

Also available on: