Appointment with Venus
A brand new edition of the classic wartime adventure novel by Jerrard Tickell. First published in 1951 and now re-issued by Manderley Press, with an introduction by Rosa Rankin-Gee and a front cover featuring a wallpaper design by British illustrator Edward Bawden.
A brand new edition of the classic wartime adventure novel by Jerrard Tickell. First published in 1951 and now re-issued by Manderley Press, with an introduction by Rosa Rankin-Gee and a front cover featuring a wallpaper design by British illustrator Edward Bawden.
A brand new edition of the classic wartime adventure novel by Jerrard Tickell. First published in 1951 and now re-issued by Manderley Press, with an introduction by Rosa Rankin-Gee and a front cover featuring a wallpaper design by British illustrator Edward Bawden.
“The Germans know something’s up. All the houses on the island are being searched. They know I’m here. They’ve got extra guards on the cliffs … I think we’re in for a bad night.”
It is 1940. The world is at war, and all that stands between England and Nazi-occupied Europe is the tiny (fictitious) Channel Island of Armorel – controlled by German soldiers but home to loyal villagers, a pacifist painter … and a pedigree Guernsey cow named Venus.
A plot is hatched by the War Office in London to liberate Venus – and so this intrepid adventure begins, combining romantic young love and patriotic heroism with submarine missions, enemy action, wartime tragedy and cow-napping.
Jerrard Tickell penned this book while lodging in Le Manoir on Sark – a grand old house that was once home to the island’s feudal Seigneurs, and which also served as German Headquarters during the occupation.
Appointment with Venus was thus inspired by Sark’s real-life history; after hearing about the evacuation of cattle from the Channel Islands during the Second World War, Tickell’s re-telling of the story was enormously successful, both as this bestselling novel and as the acclaimed film of the same name, starring David Niven and Glynis Johns.
“Appointment with Venus one of best books written to show what might have happened if Britain had been occupied, as much for what is glossed over and romanticised as included. I strongly recommend a read.”
Anne Sebba, New York Times best-selling author of Les Parisiennes, Ethel Rosenberg, That Woman, and many more besides
Author and Contributors
Jerrard Tickell was born in Dublin and educated in Tipperary and London. Travelling extensively before the Second World War began, he joined the army in 1940, was appointed to the War Office in 1941, and then the General Staff in 1945. His career as a writer began in 1936 with the publication of See How They Run and continued with a series of bestselling novels and biographies, including Odette (1949) and Appointment with Venus (1951). Jerrard Tickell died in 1966.
Rosa Rankin-Gee was 23 when she left university and spent the summer on Sark, working as a private cook. The Last Kings of Sark, the novella she wrote set on the island, went on to win Shakespeare & Company’s international Paris Literary Prize, and was published by Virago in 2013 and Scribner in 2022. Her writing has been described as “a cross between Françoise Sagan and Nell Dunn” (Marie Claire) and “Enthralling… Blazing bright” (The Guardian); her work has appeared in The Guardian, Esquire, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The Paris Review and The New Yorker. Rosa lives between London and the Kentish seaside.
www.rosarankingee.com
Edward Bawden (1903–89) was a painter, illustrator and graphic artist, known for his prints, book covers, posters, murals and wallpaper designs. He taught at the Royal College of Art (where he had also been a student), worked as a commercial artist and served as a war artist during the Second World War. Bawden’s distinctive style was defined by his interest in unusual details, bold patterns and witty designs. Inspired by a love of reading and gardening, a broad knowledge of history and a strong sense of place, Bawden is one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century.
