PROFESSOR GREEN IS SO ABSORBED IN WRITING HIS HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE THAT HE PAYS NO ATTENTION TO THE GOINGS-ON AROUND HIM IN DOLLS HOUSE LAND. DIANA, THE DOLLS’ OWNER, IS KEEN TO SUPPORT HIS WORK IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE

THIS STORY, READ BY ACTRESS GENEVIEVE GAUNT (WITH HER KITTEN, BLUEBELL) IS FROM A BOOK CALLED THE LAND OF PLAY, IN WHICH WE GET TO KNOW DIANA’S DOLLS AND THE ADVENTURES SHE HAS WITH THEM

Ada Wallas née Radford (1859–1934) was a teacher and writer who published several books, as well as pieces in the famous artistic journal of the 1890s, The Yellow Book. Her children’s story collection The Land of Play was published by Edward Arnold in 1906. The copy Genevieve reads from is from the College Library’s Rogers Collection. It was presented by May Wallas (NC 1917), Ada’s daughter, who was a Fellow and Director of Studies in Modern Languages at Newnham. 

Come back to this page over the festival weekend to watch this short story being read aloud.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

GENEVIEVE GAUNT (NC 2010) read English at Newnham. Genevieve is an actor and has worked across TV (Knightfall, The Royals, Strike), film (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanThe Last DragonslayerDusty & Me), theatre (MonogamyFrench Without Tears) and radio (Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, BBC R4  and John Dos Passos’s The USA Trilogy, BBC R4). In 2021 she is the new voice of Lady Penelope opposite Jon Culshaw as Parker in Thunderbirds, the lead 11-year-old boy in David Walliams’ latest book Code Name Bananas and narrated the Booker International Winner The Discomfort of Evening.