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A Young Girl's Touch was Barbara Skelton's first novel published in 1955. Melinda Paleface, bearing a more than passing resemblance to the author, is a heart-throb: a high official in the Foreign Service, a French sailor, two English captains, an American airman, even the celebrated native King, Yoyo of Jubaland fall under her spell. And yet, among the other girls in the cypher department she is, as the original blurb, said 'as quiet as an Amanita in a basket of mushrooms ...' Again to quote from the original blurb, 'Barbara Skelton reveals herself as a buoyant satirist, a mistress of the picaresque, a fresh and original humourist who casts a vivid and haunting life on the problem of men and women.'
About the author
Barbara Skelton (1916-1996) was a writer and literary femme fatale. She had many lovers and three husbands. She wrote two novels, a volume of short stories and two brilliant autobiographies. Her entire oeuvre is being reissued in Faber Finds.
In addition to her own fiction, Barbara Skelton was also the original for Pamela Flitton in Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time sequence.
Summary
Melinda Paleface is a heart-throb: a high official in the Foreign Service, a French sailor, two English captains, an American airman, even the celebrated native King, Yoyo of Jubaland fall under her spell. And yet, among the other girls in the cypher department she is, as the original blurb, said 'as quiet as an Amanita in a basket of mushrooms'.
