“What are Dodie Smith’s Best Books?” We looked at all of Smith’s authored bibliography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!

We took all of the books written by Dodie Smith and looked at their Goodreads, Amazon, and LibraryThing scores, ranking them against one another to see which books came out on top. The books are ranked in our list below based on which titles have the highest overall score between all 3 review sites in comparison with all of the other books by the same author. The process isn’t super scientific and in reality, most books aren’t “better” than other books as much as they are just different. That being said, we do enjoy seeing where our favorites landed, and if you aren’t familiar with the author at all, the rankings can help you see what books might be best to start with.

The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

The Top Book’s Of Dodie Smith

13 ) Look Back with Gratitude

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 6
• Amazon: 10
• LibraryThing: 11

11 ) The Town in Bloom

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 9
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 10

London’s theatre world of the 1920’s provides a glittering backdrop for Mouse, an eighteen-year-old Lancashire girl intent on a stage career. She tells the story herself with the utmost frankness and with an authenticity which derives from Dodie Smith’s own wide experience as both actress and playwright. Mouse never felt that her nickname fully suited her; tiny she might be, but timid never. Within a day of her arrival in town she had bluffed her way into an audition at a famous theatre, infuriated its forceful young stage director, amused its kind if quite amoral actor-manager, Rex Crossway, and finally landed not a part but a toehold as a junior secretary. From then on she was involved in the engrossing affairs of the Crossway Theatre. She was also involved with her friends at the club where she lived — Molly, a baby-faced six-footer, and elegant, ambitious LIlian who was fated to clash disastrously with Mouse, though even then they could find something to laugh at together. And later there was Zelle, rich, generous, enigmatic, and responsible for an outing to a Suffolk village pageant which proved a turning point for them all.

11 ) Look Back with Astonishment

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 5
• Amazon: 10
• LibraryThing: 11

8 ) The Girl from the Candle-lit Bath

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 11
• Amazon: 10
• LibraryThing: 4

When Nan Mansfield arrives home to hear her husband, Roy, on the telephone arranging a clandestine meeting in Regent’s Park, she is determined to find out what he is involved in. Is there another woman — or can it be blackmail, drugs, even treason? Roy is a Member of Parliament who was helped into politics by Cyprian Slepe, a brilliant eccentric who lives with his sister, Celina, in a decaying Stately Home. Nan comes to believe that Cyprian is connected with Roy’s mysterious activities. Helped by an engigmatic taxi-driver, she delves deeper and deeper, while her love and loyalty war with her ever-increasing suspicions, until at last she discovers that her whole life is in jeopardy.

8 ) The Starlight Barking

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 7
• Amazon: 9
• LibraryThing: 9

Dodie Smith’s The Hundred and One Dalmatians, later adapted by Disney, was declared a classic when first published in 1956. The Starlight Barking, Dodie’s own long-forgotten sequel, is a thrilling new adventure for Pongo and his family. As the story opens, every living creature except dogs is gripped by an enchanted sleep. One of the original Dalmatian puppies, all grown up since the first novel, is now the Prime Minister’s mascot. Relying on her spotted parents for guidance, she assumes emergency leadership for the canine population of England. Awaiting advice from Sirius, the Dog Star, dogs of every breed crowd Trafalgar Square to watch the evening skies. The message they receive is a disturbing proposition, one that might forever destroy their status as “man’s best friend.”

8 ) A Tale of Two Families

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 10
• Amazon: 4
• LibraryThing: 11

May and June are devoted sisters, married to the devoted Clare brothers. After 25 years of their marriages, the four still enjoy each other’s company. May’s husband, George, is a highly successful businessman; June’s Robert is a far from successful writer. May and George are ever generous, and when they move from their London flat to a country house they persuade June and Robert to accept, rent free, a cottage on the place, which is in a park of a great decaying house whose occupants are enigmatic. The two families, thoroughly enjoying their new experiences, are joined by two likable and appealing grandparents. The young people come down on weekends from London, and the three generations share idyllic weeks complete with lilacs, nightingales, and the creature comforts May provides. A problem puppy and an awkward girl from the great house underline the delights of living. But there is a hidden danger in the close proximity, for the first time, of the families, and an unwelcome aunty proves to be both a catalyst and a fairy godmother in reverse.

7 ) It Ends with Revelations

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 13
• Amazon: 6
• LibraryThing: 5

During a summer festival in an English spa town Miles Quentin, a distinguished actor, and his devoted wife Jill, become friendly with the local member of Parliament, Geoffrey Thornton, and his young daughters, Robin and Kit. All these attractive, intelligent and fully occupied people are seemingly untroubled. But the surface of their lives is deceptive.

5 ) The New Moon with the Old

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 8
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 7

When Jane Minton arrives at Dome House as a secretary-housekeeper, she finds herself sharing the comfortable country home of four attractive young people. Their handsome widower father, Rupert Carrington, too occupied with his London business to see very much of them, merely provides for them generously and leaves them to cultivate their talents — which they energetically do. Richard, the eldest, is a composer; Clare, whose true talent (if it can be called that) has never disclosed itself, attempts to paint; Drew is collecting material for a novel to be set in the Edwardian era; and Merry, still at school, already works hard towards a stage career. Jane Minton, warmly welcomed into this happy household, feels her luck is too good to be true. And it is certainly too good to last. The delightful private world of Dome House is fated to break up. It is Jane who learns from Rupert Carrington that he is in danger of prosectuion for fraud and must leave England. He asks her to break the news to his children — who must now fend completely for themselves — and do what she can to help. She is very willing to, for his sake as well as theirs, as she is greatly attracted by him. What happens then makes an engrossing and unpredicable story, for the Carringtons are not usual young people, and it is, perhaps, their own basic originality which draws to them unusual adventures, in which humor and more than a touch of strangeness are often inextricably blended.

5 ) The Midnight Kittens

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 12
• Amazon: 2
• LibraryThing: 8

One night, Pam and Tom put out a saucer of milk for the hedgehogs that live in the orchard, and sit watching at the window. Suddenly, on the stroke of midnight, four kittens appear, drink the milk, and then vanish again. Wherever have they come from? The twins are mystified – and decide to find out the secret behind their magical midnight visitors…

4 ) Look Back with Mixed Feelings

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 4
• Amazon: 10
• LibraryThing: 6

3 ) I Capture the Castle

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 3
• Amazon: 5
• LibraryThing: 2

Through six turbulent months of 1934, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain keeps a journal, filling three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries about her home, a ruined Suffolk castle, and her eccentric and penniless family. By the time the last diary shuts, there have been great changes in the Mortmain household, not the least of which is that Cassandra is deeply, hopelessly, in love.

2 ) The Hundred and One Dalmatians

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 1
• Amazon: 2
• LibraryThing: 3

Pongo and Missis had a lovely life. With their human owners, the Dearlys, to look after them, they lived in a comfortable home in London with their 15 adorable Dalmatian puppies, loved and admired by all. Especially the Dearlys’ neighbor Cruella de Vil, a fur-fancying fashion plate with designs on the Dalmatians’ spotted coats! So, when the puppies are stolen from the Dearly home, and even Scotland Yard is unable to find them, Pongo and Missis know they must take matters into their own paws!

1 ) Look Back with Love: a Manchester Childhood

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 2
• Amazon: 1
• LibraryThing: 1

Dodie Smith is best known as the author of “I Capture the Castle” and The Hundred and One Dalmatians”, but in her childhood memoir “Look Back with Love”, she created another magical book which is just as enchanting and full of humour.

Dodie Smith’s Best Books

Dodie Smith Review Website Bibliography Rankings