The Secret of Moonacre

The trailer is up for the movie version of The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge, retitled The Secrets of Moonacre. You can find it here (it's on the third page). And here is what Maria's room looks like:


It is beautiful, but... I read The Little White Horse when I was eight, and fell hard for it. Maria's room was, to me, the be all and end all of rooms. Here are bits of Goudge's description:

"It was at the top of the tower, and the tower was a round one, so Maria's room was circular, neither too large nor too small, just the right size for a girl of thirteen...It had three windows, two narrow lancet windows and one large one with a window seat in the thickness of the wall...In each of the windows stood beautiful silver branched candlesticks with three lighted candles burning in each of them...The walls were not paneled with wood, as in Miss Heliotrope's room, but the silver-grey stone was so lovely that Maria was glad. The ceiling was vaulted and delicate ribbings of stone curved over Maria's head like the branches of a tree, meeting at the highest point of the ceiling in a carved representation of the sickle moon surrounded by stars.

"There was no carpet upon the silvery oak floor but a little white sheepskin lay beside the bed...The bed was a four-poster, hung with pale blue silk curtains embroidered with silver stars, of the same material as the window curtains, and spread with a patchwork quilt made of exquisite squares of velvet and silk, of all colors of the rainbow, gay and lovely."

I begged my mother for a sheepskin rug, and was so happy when she gave it to me. I had a patchwork quilt on my bed too. And my sophomore year in college, I actually lived in a round tower room...

So this movie room is lovely, but it is hard to surrender my own mental image to it.

And where, in the trailer, is Robin????

My other favorite Elizabeth Goudge's are Linnets and Valerians, and The Valley of Song. I also am fond of the books about Henrietta--City of Bells, Sister of the Angels, and Henrietta's House, aka The Blue Hills. Someday I will write proper reviews of them...

Does anyone else have a favorite fictional room? I can't think of one that even comes close.