Little or no scholarly research has been done about the Quennells, but as Tony Woolrich writes: The books were especially strong on housing, agriculture and the way people earned their livings.

[2] In an era when history focused on the Great Man and political forces as the drivers of history, these books about the day to day life of the common person were ahead of their time, which would not come into the fore until the 1970s (see microhistory).

In 1935 the Quennell's published The Good New Days (1935), where modern industrial and agricultural processes, together with the problems of the future, were considered.

They had three children, including a son Peter Courtney Quennell (1905–1993) who became a well-known writer and was editor of History Today.

[3] He maintained the family tradition, editing an updated set of 'everyday histories' under the general title of the "English Life" series during the 1960s.