The Sound of Music by Maria von Trapp – #1949Club

Today, I’ll be writing about a story that we all know – though quite a few people I’ve spoken to didn’t realise it was ever a book. As the title of this post has already given away, this is the book that led to the smash-hit musical The Sound of Music – and my 1970 edition shares that title, though it was originally published as The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. So, yes, Maria von Trapp was a real person – and a surprising amount of the film appears to be based on truth. Or, at least, the truth as Maria sets it out in her autobiography. She was an irrepressible novitiate nun who wasn’t very at adhering to rules; she became governess to the children of a widower (though not as many children as in the film – at least until they started having their own); she married him. And that is about the first 80 pages of the book! When the biography was adapted for screen, it’s perhaps not a shock that they focused on the romantic element of the story. Though, in truth, it isn’t especially…