What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

While I was in uni, I stumbled on a large collection of fiction books in the university library, which I vaguely remember may have been written by a writing team (possibly a married couple). The physical books themselves were old, with the tissue paper page at the front, etc. So I suspect they are long out of print.

All the books featured characters travelling through different locations (mainly countries in Europe, some in North America) and had a lot of rich imagery and description of the locations and the process of the travel itself. Generally it was someone rich travelling by automobile in the very early days of cars. (They often traveled through villages that had never seen a car before, for example.) The experience of traveling in a car in that era let them see the places off the beaten track and travel more slowly and comfortably than the train, taking detours, etc. However, the cars were unreliable and they had to have a chauffeur/mechanic with them. The romantic plot often featured things like the chauffeur actually being an impoverished lord who falls in love with the heroine who is a rich American heiress, etc.

Unfortunately, I can't remember any of the titles or the name of the author(s). I only found them originally because I happened to stumble onto them on the shelves of the library.

If anyone could help, I would love to be able to search out these books again :)

Hi Melanie, I've found a couple of lists that might prove helpful:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6...

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6...

Melanie, around what year did you read these books?

Did any of the same characters appear throughout the series? Were they English, American, etc.?

There is a very old series that was called The Motorcar Girls which I can't seem to find on GR. At one point in time I had a couple of the books, but, well, I moved and still haven't found all of my books (nor have I gotten the ones that I do know where are put into the correct order).

The cover was kind of a pastel blue/grey (although that could be age) and had a picture of a girl in a scarf, goggles and the old duster type coat that was required for motoring in those days. It was written sometime between 1910 and 1930 I believe. There were several (I had at least 2) but I don't remember the exact titles but it started with "The Motorcar girls and. . ."

If that sounds like it might be your books, I'll trek upstairs to the attic and see if I can sort out a few more boxes of books and possibly find them.

Melanie, are you still looking for these or did you find them?

No, I never found them. And I somehow missed the last few responses.

Kris--I think the series was English, but it often featured American characters. (Often the classic English lord and American heiress pairing, and at least a couple of the books were set in America, from memory.) And I read the books in probably 2005/2006 but the copies were much, much older than that. (From the era when they had the sheet of tissue paper in the front of the book—not sure when that was.)

Ann--thanks for the suggestion, but it doesn't sound like them. They didn't involve a specific group of girls traveling together but would have different couples in each book.

Is automobile racing a theme in these stories?

A long shot - Three Speeds Forward: An Automobile Love Story with One Reverse (1906) by Lloyd Osbourne?

Description on WorldCat.org - https://www.worldcat.org/title/three-...

Search = https://www.WorldCat.org/advancedsear... > Keyword: automobile romance | 1900-1960 ? | Not juvenile | Fiction | Book | English

The link didn't work for me, but it doesn't sound like one of them. I don't remember any that had racing in them. They were travel romances, so there was a lot of description of the different places they visited.

Thanks, anyway!

Worldcat.org can be a bit glitchy. If the problem was seeing non-English search results, I'd suggest waiting and trying the site again. It's very good for identifying old books because you get specify a range of publication dates, etc.

Google brought up some books by a husband-wife writing team: C.N. Williamson & A.M. Williamson. The Motor Maid & The Chauffeur and the Chaperon sound like they could be what you're looking for?