The Oaken Heart is Margery Allinghams only published work of nonfiction. It was written over the noisy bombfilled winter of 1940 1941 but covers the period from August 1938 when war first seemed a real possibility. Allingham was living in the Essex village of Tolleshunt DArcy which she nicknamed Auburn after Oliver Goldsmiths The Deserted Village. She was already an established detective novelist when war broke out in 1939 but quickly found herself acting as village billeting officer and fir