Harriet the Spy

[RDMorrell]

I was looking to see whether this classic character created by Louise Fitzhugh had her own thread, and it appears that she doesn't, so I thought I would redress that.

To the best of my knowledge, there are five Harriet books: Harriet the Spy, The Long Secret and Sport, all written by Louise Fitzhugh. Then there are also two continuation novels: Harriet Spies Again by Helen Ericson and Harriet the Spy: Double Agent by Maya Gold. These last two books have been officially approved and authorised by Louise Fitzhugh's estate.

The original Harriet the Spy is a terrific book. I have a Dell Yearling paperback edition that I obtained in about 1983 or 1984, when I was living in the United States. Although I enjoyed it a lot, I didn't get the other books for some reason. Recently however, I have been able to get new Dell paperbacks of all the books bar Sport from Fishpond here in New Zealand. Sport is a lot more elusive than the others for some reason, but I have now managed to order a second-hand copy from Amazon.

While I loved Harriet the Spy, I didn't enjoy The Long Secret quite so much. It focuses on Harriet and her friend Beth Ellen Hansen. Janie Gibbs puts in an appearance, but Sport doesn't really feature at all. Both Harriet and Beth Ellen are actually quite irritating in this book. There is a good little mystery (someone keeps leaving people cryptic notes with little quotations), but while it is solved at the end with a nice twist, I found the resolution slightly unsatisfactory. There is also quite a lot of discussion of female puberty (which I would have been bored to tears by as a kid I suspect; as an adult, I found it marginally more interesting). Apparently, this was quite groundbreaking for its time. Religion comes up a fair bit too, and is handled OK (I particularly liked the bit where Harriet's father tells her that we need to respect people's religious beliefs even if we don't agree with them).

The synopsis for Sport looks a good deal more promising, and I'm really looking forward to reading that when it arrives.

Harriet Spies Again is a cracking little read though, and I think Helen Ericson has written a pretty worthy sequel. Lots of great stuff about words and grammar in this book. Also some very clever wordplay. And Harriet is a lot more likable than in The Long Secret. At the moment, I'm currently in the process of reading Harriet the Spy: Double Agent, which follows on directly from the events of Harriet Spies Again and is so far also proving quite enjoyable.

So, what are your views on Harriet? Have you read any of the books other than the original? Which is your favourite book, character and so on? And conversely, least favourite? Etc.

[Mick]

Having read all the "Harriet" books a few years ago I got hold of Louise Fitzhugh's biography by Virginia L.Wolf, and it's well worth reading. Here's a blurb from thr back cover:
"In this important book, Virginia Wolf suggests that Louise Fitzhugh shared the qualities of her most famous character, Harriet the Spy: intelligence, imagination, curiosity, vitality. Wolf's insightful analysis of Fitzhugh's writing, based firmly on startling new information about Fitzhugh's life, is ample evidence that Wolf shares these qualities too."
One of the (not so startling) pieces of information is that Louise Fitzhugh was a lesbian, but more interesting was her take on individualism, arising from her childhood in particular. It's impossible to try to summarise a biography, particularly of someone as complex as Louise Fitzhugh, so I'd just recommend to anyone keen on finding out more about the author of (among others) the "Harriet" series that they search out Virginia L.Wolf's book.

[Tilda]

I really love Harriet The Spy, and luckily found the DVD of the film in a charity shop a while ago.
The film was enjoyable, but didn't really match my imagined version. Anyone else's opinions?

[Nepolean]

Unfortunately I am yet to read these books, but I saw the movie 'Harriet the spy' and I loved it.
I'll surely read the book sometime in the future.