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Latchkey Ladies
Latchkey Ladies was first published in 1921, the first novel by the Canadian writer Marjorie Grant Cook. The novel opens in 1918 in the Mimosa Club, a women’s hostel in central London where young women office workers and ladies on declining incomes find refuge from the tedium of war work and the chilliness of impending poverty.
Anne Carey is twenty-five, and works in an office where she is annoyed by soldiers harrassing her. She is engaged to a young lieutenant in the army, but she is bored of him and bored of the war. Her Mimosa Club friends take her to Bohemian parties where she meets models and artists, and then she meets Dampier. He is unlike anyone she has ever met before, and they begin an affair. Then, when he is holidaying with his wife and children at Easter, Anne realises that she is pregnant. What will she do?
Anne Carey is twenty-five, and works in an office where she is annoyed by soldiers harrassing her. She is engaged to a young lieutenant in the army, but she is bored of him and bored of the war. Her Mimosa Club friends take her to Bohemian parties where she meets models and artists, and then she meets Dampier. He is unlike anyone she has ever met before, and they begin an affair. Then, when he is holidaying with his wife and children at Easter, Anne realises that she is pregnant. What will she do?
302 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1921
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 13, 2022
A little-known novel published in 1921, but opening in the last year of WW1, this revolves around a group of women, so-called “surplus” or “superfluous” single women who refer to themselves as ‘latchkey ladies’ renting rooms from a succession of landladies, and engaged in forms of war work. At their centre’s Anne Carey part of a crowd who dines and socialises at the decaying Mimosa Club, a charitable club for lone women. Like her peers, Anne’s a woman of slender means, forced to take on a series of frustrating, deadly-dull jobs in an effort to make a decent living. But then Anne meets married man and eminent writer Philip Dampier and they begin an affair which threatens to overturn everything Anne’s worked for. Marjorie Grant was part of author Rose Macaulay’s circle and it’s possible that Anne and Dampier’s relationship's partly inspired by Macaulay’s long affair with the Irish novelist Gerald O’Donovan.
Marjorie Grant’s writing’s fairly uneven, her narrative’s peppered with repetitions and she sometimes strays too far into the realms of melodrama - of the kind commonly associated with popular writers of the day like Ethel M. Dell. There are some uncomfortable aspects, notably the portrayal of fellow club member Petunia whose shadowy origins are not only considered suspicious but thought to indicate at least one Indian parent - it’s painfully clear this marks her out as both physically and morally dubious. Although Petunia's ultimate fate’s also an interesting comment on the bizarre workings of the British class system. The story's ending's also slightly awkward and compromised. But despite its various failings, this turned out to be an incredibly absorbing piece mainly because Grant’s depiction of life in wartime London is so detailed and vivid. She’s an intelligent observer who’s clearly wrestling with the dilemmas facing single women who long for independence but whose financial and other circumstances considerably hamper their prospects. It’s also remarkably frank, despite Grant’s various ruses to escape possible censorship, so there are glimpses of what it might have been like to be unmarried and pregnant at this time, the divide between the expression of women’s and men’s sexual desire, and intimate relationships between women. This edition from Handheld Press's carefully edited with extensive background notes and a comprehensive introduction by Sarah LeFanu.
Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Handheld Press for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
Marjorie Grant’s writing’s fairly uneven, her narrative’s peppered with repetitions and she sometimes strays too far into the realms of melodrama - of the kind commonly associated with popular writers of the day like Ethel M. Dell. There are some uncomfortable aspects, notably the portrayal of fellow club member Petunia whose shadowy origins are not only considered suspicious but thought to indicate at least one Indian parent - it’s painfully clear this marks her out as both physically and morally dubious. Although Petunia's ultimate fate’s also an interesting comment on the bizarre workings of the British class system. The story's ending's also slightly awkward and compromised. But despite its various failings, this turned out to be an incredibly absorbing piece mainly because Grant’s depiction of life in wartime London is so detailed and vivid. She’s an intelligent observer who’s clearly wrestling with the dilemmas facing single women who long for independence but whose financial and other circumstances considerably hamper their prospects. It’s also remarkably frank, despite Grant’s various ruses to escape possible censorship, so there are glimpses of what it might have been like to be unmarried and pregnant at this time, the divide between the expression of women’s and men’s sexual desire, and intimate relationships between women. This edition from Handheld Press's carefully edited with extensive background notes and a comprehensive introduction by Sarah LeFanu.
Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Handheld Press for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
December 5, 2021
Set towards the end and after WW1, the latchkey ladies of the title refer to young independant girls who have come up to London and taken lodgings in order to perform War Work in town. Anne Carey is our slightly more conventional main character, then we have Maquita who is very loud but fun and seems to thrive on her latchkey life, enjoying the changes that the life throws at her; Sophy with looks, but lacking charm, even her mother seems to prefer Anne to her; later, the girls meet Petunia, who is rather mysterious, and who joins in with their latchkey existence.
Some of the characters really enjoy this new found independant, nomadic lifestyle, but Anne isn't one of them, "Actually Anne was almost at breaking point without knowing it. The difficulties of her ordinary day, too long hours, too little food and fresh air, no free time almost, and the common anxiety of war weighed her down, and the hardest part of the strain was, as she had said, that she hated this work". At a party she meets Dampier, a writer she had admired, and a married man. He is like no one she has known before, and soon they are spending quite a lot of time together.
Naturally life throws a series of obstacles in Anne's way, and watching her grow and overcome her trials was a highly readable. I would highly recommend this novel, but I would suggest, if you haven't already done so, not to read too much of the blurb, as I think it gives away too much of the plot.
*Many thanks to Handheld Press and Edelweiss for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion*
Some of the characters really enjoy this new found independant, nomadic lifestyle, but Anne isn't one of them, "Actually Anne was almost at breaking point without knowing it. The difficulties of her ordinary day, too long hours, too little food and fresh air, no free time almost, and the common anxiety of war weighed her down, and the hardest part of the strain was, as she had said, that she hated this work". At a party she meets Dampier, a writer she had admired, and a married man. He is like no one she has known before, and soon they are spending quite a lot of time together.
Naturally life throws a series of obstacles in Anne's way, and watching her grow and overcome her trials was a highly readable. I would highly recommend this novel, but I would suggest, if you haven't already done so, not to read too much of the blurb, as I think it gives away too much of the plot.
*Many thanks to Handheld Press and Edelweiss for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion*
February 28, 2022
Stepping into men’s jobs during the First World War gave women increased opportunities and better pay, and is often seen as a stepping stone to freedom. But was this so-called freedom all it was cracked up to be? And was it what women wanted? And how much choice did they have? These are some of the themes Marjorie Grant explores in Latchkey Ladies. It's a well-written novel which raises some fascinating questions, but unfortunately I couldn't warm to it, mainly because I found the main character rather dislikeable.
June 6, 2024
I’m so glad I buddy read this with my friend Jen! We have been discussing the novel and agreed that, in some respects, it’s a failure as a novel. It doesn’t seem like Marjorie Grant fully landed on whether she wanted it to be a story about a group of women who are without male support (the “latchkey ladies” of the title) or if she wanted her story to be about her heroine Anne’s joys and struggles. There are characters who are introduced and then dropped, characters who are mentioned once and never again, and characters who we are interested in and get a little more of their stories and then their stories fizzle out. The second half of the novel becomes Anne’s story, and I liked it much better. There’s an emotional drive and pathos to Anne’s story that is compelling and engaging. I love a relationship that develops towards the end of the novel but the novel ends without fleshing it out. It’s not wholly surprising to have an open-ended ending but I wanted closure.
Despite its flaws, I enjoyed it enough to give it four stars. There is a ton to talk about so it was a perfect buddy read. The writing itself is good. There are some lovely characters (even if we don’t spend enough time with some of them!). Anne spends some time teaching in a girls’ school and it was so fun to read about. It’s refreshing to read a novel where a girls’ school is a good experience for both the teacher and the students. 😂 This time period (late WWI and just after the war) is fascinating as is the exploration of women’s lives at this time. Sarah Le Fanu compared it to George Gissing’s The Odd Women. I love that novel so it’s given me good food for thought in comparing the two. I recommend this if you can put up with its eccentricities!
Despite its flaws, I enjoyed it enough to give it four stars. There is a ton to talk about so it was a perfect buddy read. The writing itself is good. There are some lovely characters (even if we don’t spend enough time with some of them!). Anne spends some time teaching in a girls’ school and it was so fun to read about. It’s refreshing to read a novel where a girls’ school is a good experience for both the teacher and the students. 😂 This time period (late WWI and just after the war) is fascinating as is the exploration of women’s lives at this time. Sarah Le Fanu compared it to George Gissing’s The Odd Women. I love that novel so it’s given me good food for thought in comparing the two. I recommend this if you can put up with its eccentricities!
April 7, 2023
What melodrama!
March 14, 2022
Latchkey Ladies, first published in 1921, is the latest title in Handheld Press’s Handheld Classic series. It has a fascinating introduction by Sarah LeFanu.
Although the latchkey ladies of the title may have ‘a room of their own’, they do not own that room and, although they may be living an independent life that is likely out of necessity rather than choice. Furthermore there remain constraints on what they can do or can be seen to do. Some of the characters, namely Maquita Gilroy and, in a more extreme fashion, Petunia Garry, push at these boundaries. Although other characters flit in and out of the book, Anne Carey’s story is the main focus of the book.
When first introduced to the reader, Anne is at ‘breaking point without knowing it’. She’s working long hours in a role she regards as ‘trivial and silly to a degree’ (there are echoes of the Circumlocution Office of Dickens’s Little Dorrit in the tasks her department carries out). Food is scarce or unnutritious and there is anxiety about the progress of the war. The atmosphere of wartime London is skilfully evoked. ‘The darkness of the street, the lamps few and dimmed by green paint… the taxis with their blurred lights, the cavernous, lumbering drays and unlit buses were vehicles of mystery.’ Indeed, one episode in the book (in the chapter entitled ‘Searchlights’) depicting a German bombing raid on London is chillingly reminiscent of scenes we are witnessing currently on the nightly news. ‘There was nothing to be done but sit through it, and in a moment it seemed the faint distant booming gathered force as the nearer guns came into action, and the night was filled with a continuous crash of fire that shook the street and made windows and tables rattle.’
I’ll freely admit that I found Anne difficult to like at times possibly because the author gives us such a unflinching insight into her seemingly perpetual mental turmoil and frequent periods of low mood. Anne finds it difficult to decide what she really wants – security or ‘excitement’ – often shifting from one position to another and back again. I really found it difficult to forgive her treatment of her fiancé, Thomas, which if not exactly cruel comes pretty close to it. However, there were things I admired about her such as her occasional bursts of defiance and the affection she shows for her pupils when she takes up a position at her aunt’s school. The pen portraits of the pupils are quite charming, especially in the chapter ‘Poetry Day’.
Although at times Anne demonstrates a zest for life, she seems overwhelmed by the conviction that this will entail testing herself. ‘Life called to her. She had unending curiosity about it. She wanted to know she could stand it, the road in front’. In the end, she is rather carried along by events, displaying a degree of naivety about the likely consequences of her actions.
Latchkey Ladies encompasses the light-hearted, the serious and the tragic. Moments of humour include a scene in which visiting Dampier’s home, his youngest son approaches Anne with his book of Bible stories and asks, ‘Was Jesus Mr, Mrs or Miss?’ I also liked the acerbic, rather dismissive comments about authors given to Philip Dampier to express. ‘They were an egotistic, tiresome breed… They either told you carefully rehearsed impromptu stories that were good enough, or else they sat in jealous silence afraid of losing money or reputation by giving away an idea or a phrase.’ The tragic moments are exemplified by Miss Denby, whose rather fleeting appearance ends sadly, and the event that occurs near the end of the book. I found this rather cruel, as if Anne must be punished for what had gone before. I really did hope that she eventually took the tentative hand of friendship offered to her in the closing chapter.
Latchkey Ladies is an interesting look into the lives of single women in the early part of the last century and the opportunities and challenges they faced, written with style and a dash of wit.
Although the latchkey ladies of the title may have ‘a room of their own’, they do not own that room and, although they may be living an independent life that is likely out of necessity rather than choice. Furthermore there remain constraints on what they can do or can be seen to do. Some of the characters, namely Maquita Gilroy and, in a more extreme fashion, Petunia Garry, push at these boundaries. Although other characters flit in and out of the book, Anne Carey’s story is the main focus of the book.
When first introduced to the reader, Anne is at ‘breaking point without knowing it’. She’s working long hours in a role she regards as ‘trivial and silly to a degree’ (there are echoes of the Circumlocution Office of Dickens’s Little Dorrit in the tasks her department carries out). Food is scarce or unnutritious and there is anxiety about the progress of the war. The atmosphere of wartime London is skilfully evoked. ‘The darkness of the street, the lamps few and dimmed by green paint… the taxis with their blurred lights, the cavernous, lumbering drays and unlit buses were vehicles of mystery.’ Indeed, one episode in the book (in the chapter entitled ‘Searchlights’) depicting a German bombing raid on London is chillingly reminiscent of scenes we are witnessing currently on the nightly news. ‘There was nothing to be done but sit through it, and in a moment it seemed the faint distant booming gathered force as the nearer guns came into action, and the night was filled with a continuous crash of fire that shook the street and made windows and tables rattle.’
I’ll freely admit that I found Anne difficult to like at times possibly because the author gives us such a unflinching insight into her seemingly perpetual mental turmoil and frequent periods of low mood. Anne finds it difficult to decide what she really wants – security or ‘excitement’ – often shifting from one position to another and back again. I really found it difficult to forgive her treatment of her fiancé, Thomas, which if not exactly cruel comes pretty close to it. However, there were things I admired about her such as her occasional bursts of defiance and the affection she shows for her pupils when she takes up a position at her aunt’s school. The pen portraits of the pupils are quite charming, especially in the chapter ‘Poetry Day’.
Although at times Anne demonstrates a zest for life, she seems overwhelmed by the conviction that this will entail testing herself. ‘Life called to her. She had unending curiosity about it. She wanted to know she could stand it, the road in front’. In the end, she is rather carried along by events, displaying a degree of naivety about the likely consequences of her actions.
Latchkey Ladies encompasses the light-hearted, the serious and the tragic. Moments of humour include a scene in which visiting Dampier’s home, his youngest son approaches Anne with his book of Bible stories and asks, ‘Was Jesus Mr, Mrs or Miss?’ I also liked the acerbic, rather dismissive comments about authors given to Philip Dampier to express. ‘They were an egotistic, tiresome breed… They either told you carefully rehearsed impromptu stories that were good enough, or else they sat in jealous silence afraid of losing money or reputation by giving away an idea or a phrase.’ The tragic moments are exemplified by Miss Denby, whose rather fleeting appearance ends sadly, and the event that occurs near the end of the book. I found this rather cruel, as if Anne must be punished for what had gone before. I really did hope that she eventually took the tentative hand of friendship offered to her in the closing chapter.
Latchkey Ladies is an interesting look into the lives of single women in the early part of the last century and the opportunities and challenges they faced, written with style and a dash of wit.
December 10, 2022
The publisher's blurb made this early twentieth-century novel sound more interesting than I found it. The surplus women of the WW1 years are by no means, other than their own means, all equally disadvantaged. Apart from the desire or need to earn their own living, the only thing that the four signature 'latchkey ladies' of the novel have in common is temporarily shared accommodation provided by married women whose sole material asset is a house they need to finance by taking in lodgers. Where the twice unhappily married George Gissing, in The Odd Couple, presented the spectacle of two unmarried women with lofty aspirations as figures of derision, Grant portrays the well-born and well-bred Anne, her principal latchkey lodger and wage-slave, as justifiably enraged at being expected to abide by the house-rules of an 'impertinent' Irish landlady -- an interesting reversal of fortune for Irish lodgers in English households -- and perform seemingly worthless tasks for an 'impudent' under-manager. How dare such worthless people treat her with so little respect! Depressed by her mean lodgings with her 'Sinn Fein' landlady and exhausted by the exacting demands of office life, poor Anne exercises her privilege to quit her tedious employment without notice, and without having secured or even sought another job. What she needs is a well-earned holiday! This seemingly impulsive decision is enabled by some considerable savings at her disposal, conveniently topped up by a legacy from her former fiancé. I wonder how many dairy maids or munition workers, or even Tess Durbeyfield, would have given their right arm, metaphorically if not literally, to escape to the warmth and the security of weekly wages available to office workers. But the privileged Anne, educated privately by a French governess and offered a position as a teacher in the private school run by a generous maiden aunt and her companion, a seemingly socially acceptable odd couple. In accepting this position, for which she is formally unqualified, Anne is exposed to no hardship greater than a pleasant way of passing the time for a few months in agreeable surroundings. On leaving her sinecure lest her subsequent social disgrace impel fee-paying parents to withdraw their children from her malign influence, another solicitous maiden aunt takes care of her. As 'scum comes to the surface in the great cauldron of war' (33) so, in the mixing bowl of social life, cream invariably rises to the top. Thus our latchkey ladies, the creme de la creme of young womanhood, all of whom, even the 'guttersnipe' Petunia, are self-evidently destined for better things, find their fulfilment in marriage to a good man. In her introduction to the novel, Sarah LeFanu likens Grant's scenario to Rose Macaulay's versions in her life and her art, but other than the biographical connection, the comparison is misplaced. Macaulay's wit is acerbic but never vicious; Grant's is utterly uncharitable towards the victims of social inequality. Whatever her mysterious origins, like Jane Austen's orphans of doubtful provenance, the 'guttersnipe' is here redeemed by her good looks, amusing company and ability to 'pass' in polite society, unlike those suspected of mean or mixed race descent. It's hardly surprising that Grant's solution to the problem of surplus women is to reward the socially privileged with the best of the surviving men. Where Macaulay never resorts to sentimentality, Grant displays a lamentable liking for diminutive things: lovely little girls and women with neat Cinderella feet, Exmoor foals, frolicking lambs and sweet little kittens -- these are a few of her favourites things! No wonder the demon lover observes that Anne 'love[s] all amusing small things' (178). Why wouldn't Grant's heroine share her predilections? She endorses Anne's catty dismissal of a member of the Mimosa Club as 'one of those little miaowing women', assuring the reader of the aptness of the description: the maligned member had an apparently unearned income and a well-earned reputation for 'acid remarks [which] were sometimes amusing, but more often spiteful. It was a meagre life, and Miss Pratt had a meagre mind.' (91) There's no mitigation here for Pratts. Anne's meagreness, by contrast, is not only blameless; it's rewarded by the the unearned income that enables her to live comfortably, with the aid of a lumbering domestic servant, courtesy of her former lovers. This is not a novel that offers comfort to women of lesser means and broader sympathies.
May 16, 2022
I originally gave this 3 stars, but on reflection felt that I was being a bit harsh, so upped it to 4. Ideally, I’d give it 3.5. The writing is surprising sparse and clean for a book written so long ago. I was slightly irked by the melodrama but that’s a feature of the times, rather than the writing I think. Latchkey ladies tells the story of women in war time who work as part of the war effort and live in lodging houses. As such, it’s a piece of social history, documenting the progress of women ‘out of the home’ and into the workplace. Like all tes formative social processes, it’s not without pain. The women are caught between enjoying freedom and hankering for a more traditional role. When the main protagonist starts seeing a married man, the hypocritical views of women in society are laid bare. Their ´so-called freedom is a mirage. At the end, we are reminded in very stark terms of what the cost was for a women in stepping out of society’s views of what a decent woman does. In some ways we’ve come a long way. On the other hand the double standards highlighted in the novel are still very much in existence. This novel could have been written in 1969 rather than 100 years ago.
May 3, 2022
Although this book was written 100 years ago, it is fresh and very readable.
Set in the final year of WW1, the book follows the women who were doing war work. Latchkey Ladies because they rented rooms. The book features a cast of quite different characters, but most strongly, follows a woman called Anne. I'm not sure if I actually liked her, but she certainly went through a lot, and we leave her with the premise of a happy future.
Set in the final year of WW1, the book follows the women who were doing war work. Latchkey Ladies because they rented rooms. The book features a cast of quite different characters, but most strongly, follows a woman called Anne. I'm not sure if I actually liked her, but she certainly went through a lot, and we leave her with the premise of a happy future.
March 30, 2023
2.5 stars.
November 20, 2023
Anne is the New Woman of the beginning of 20th century England: she is educated, has a job which provides her with a stable income and, what is perhaps most precious, has “a room of her own.” But she’s not a writer of highbrow literature, and work is a practical necessity. The events in the novel unfold against the backdrop of WWI and Anne is an employee in a Government office, sorting through official documents. She puts up with this job, though she dreads it, and maintains a precarious balance of power with her male co-workers.
The reader realizes in the very first chapters of the book that Anne’s life is waking up from the romanticized dream Virginia Woolf was to write about in A Room of One’s Own some eight years later. Anne is perfectly aware of where she stands: “Latchkey ladies […] being independent and hating it. All very well for people with gifts and professions, artists or writers. But for us, the ordinary ones, a latchkey is a terrible symbol. I must be old-fashioned and domestic at heart.” And that she indeed is. She dreams of a life in the countryside and children but wouldn’t admit that to her “latchkey friends.” She is torn between enjoying modern freedoms and heeding the call of her innermost self. Nothing much different from what the 21st–century woman struggles with, really.
https://leseriana.blog/2023/11/18/lat...
The reader realizes in the very first chapters of the book that Anne’s life is waking up from the romanticized dream Virginia Woolf was to write about in A Room of One’s Own some eight years later. Anne is perfectly aware of where she stands: “Latchkey ladies […] being independent and hating it. All very well for people with gifts and professions, artists or writers. But for us, the ordinary ones, a latchkey is a terrible symbol. I must be old-fashioned and domestic at heart.” And that she indeed is. She dreams of a life in the countryside and children but wouldn’t admit that to her “latchkey friends.” She is torn between enjoying modern freedoms and heeding the call of her innermost self. Nothing much different from what the 21st–century woman struggles with, really.
https://leseriana.blog/2023/11/18/lat...
May 30, 2022
A novel by little-known Canadian author Marjorie Grant about a group of women in post WWI London - latchkey ladies - who are single and working. It's a bit hard to follow at the beginning - lots of characters coming and going but ultimately settles on Anne, who gives up her clerical job, becomes a teacher, and falls in love with a married man. The novel takes several unexpected turns including an unwed pregnancy and a same sex couple. Although the writing is never more than workmanlike, I found the book to be an extremely interesting read.
June 18, 2024
This book was gifted to me by my friend, Elizabeth, and I had no idea what to expect going into it. And I am so glad that she and I buddy read this one because there is a lot to digest in this novel. The blurb on the back of my edition claimed this was a story of four women at the end of and in the year's immediately following WWI when there was a "surplus" of women and many women had jobs and lived in lodgings requiring a latchkey.
But, truthfully, this book could be divided into two parts. One is that of the four women and their lives, friendships, work, and relationships, and the other is the story of Anne Carrey and her life, love, and loss. While parts of the book were really wonderful, it did, overall feel disjointed. It was as if Marjorie Grant was writing two books in one and didn't really know how to blend them together. We have a number of storylines that could have been more flushed out and some which left us hanging entirely. I do think a better editor could have resolved some of these issues.
But, despite all of that, I found this book compulsively readable. I kept wanting to turn the pages and telling myself "just one more chapter" so clearly Grant knows how to weave an enjoyable story. For me, this is probably a book where the parts are greater than the whole. But Elizabeth and I do have plans to read this again in a few years because knowing the ending of this book will probably alter our perspective of the novel as a whole and we are both curious to see how we feel about it on a reread.
I recommend this with reservations. You need to know what you are getting into with this one!
But, truthfully, this book could be divided into two parts. One is that of the four women and their lives, friendships, work, and relationships, and the other is the story of Anne Carrey and her life, love, and loss. While parts of the book were really wonderful, it did, overall feel disjointed. It was as if Marjorie Grant was writing two books in one and didn't really know how to blend them together. We have a number of storylines that could have been more flushed out and some which left us hanging entirely. I do think a better editor could have resolved some of these issues.
But, despite all of that, I found this book compulsively readable. I kept wanting to turn the pages and telling myself "just one more chapter" so clearly Grant knows how to weave an enjoyable story. For me, this is probably a book where the parts are greater than the whole. But Elizabeth and I do have plans to read this again in a few years because knowing the ending of this book will probably alter our perspective of the novel as a whole and we are both curious to see how we feel about it on a reread.
I recommend this with reservations. You need to know what you are getting into with this one!
July 5, 2025
As a period piece this is fascinating, but rather disjointed as a novel.
September 29, 2024
What an interesting book this was. I looked up the publication date a couple times because so much of it felt much more contemporary -- I put this in my mid-20th Century British Women bookshelf, but that is the most generous definition of mid as this book was written shortly after the first world war. It looks at the lives of women during and shortly after the first world war, and it doesn't romanticize things at all -- the war jobs are stupid, the men going off to war also also sometimes quite stupid, the lives people are leading don't feel full of meaning. There is a kind of a romance at the center of this novel -- but a very different one from anything I've ever read from the era. There were lots of points throughout where it made me think, sometimes in disagreement, sometimes honoring what the author was doing. I am glad I read this.
June 14, 2022
The storyline would have been shocking when it was published, but the writing style is quite dated now, and I found it quite slow with several parts that I felt were unnecessary inclusions.
May 4, 2024
Thought I was going to love but didn't enjoy at all. Plot was very slow and lacking, just found it very boring.
May 29, 2023
This was a 5-star read to me for the first half of the book then it started to focus almost solely on one protagonist and the theme of the book, ‘latchkey ladies’, was somewhat diminished. Still, I wouldn’t say the last half of the book was boring. It was just a bit different...my enthusiasm for the book was somewhat diminished. So I would give it 4 stars. Protagonists that got lost in the dust added spice and variety to the book...why introduce them if you are going to drop them or hardly make mention of them after a while without any apparent explanation? I did not particularly like Mrs. Bridson, for example, because she was a stodgy upper-crust woman unpleasant to those “under” her but still she added some spice to the story. The character Gertrude Denby and her employer Miss Pratt were interesting too...I would have liked it had they stuck around longer than one chapter.
I am quibbling...I recommend this book. It was a good read. It lifted me out of the doldrums in which for a while I was reading books that did not interest me.
Overview of book:
• Maquita Gilroy is a Government clerk with a lovely sense of self-preservation.
• Anne Carey is drifting between jobs, bored of her fiancé, and longing for something to give her life meaning. Then she meets Philip Dampier, a married man whose plays she admires.
• Petunia Garry, a beautiful teenager chorus girl with no background and dubious morals, is swept up by an idealistic soldier, who is determined to mold her into what he wants his wife to be.
• Gertrude Denby, an Admiral’s daughter and an endlessly patients companion to an irritating employer, is so very tired of living out her life in hired rooms.
• These latchkey ladies live alone or in shared rooms in London at the end of the First World War. They are determined to use their new freedoms, but they tread a fine line between their independence and disaster.
Quotes I liked out of the book a lot:
• Latchkey ladies, letting themselves in and out of dismal rooms, being independent and hating it. All very well for people with gifts and professions, artists or writers. But for us, the ordinary ones, a latch key is a terrible symbol.
• Following rumination is from Anne Carey...just a refreshing thought and something I agree with her about...I’d like to experience just for an hour in some cases, a minute in others, a month in others, the ability to be in somebody or something else. What are they experiencing? How do they see the world? ...“I’d like to be a curlew (Jim: a bird), to know how it feels,” Anne said. And I’d like to be a rabbit jumping through the heather, and a red deer hiding in the ferns, planning how to escape from the hunters, and a great heavy cart-horse ploughing the land. I’d like to be able just to taste life in all those ways, and in hundreds of human ways. We never get enough of anything.”
Reviews:
• https://bookishlyabroad.com/2022/03/2...
• I couldn’t gain access to this without taking out a subscription to the newspaper: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/la...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2023/...
Notes:
• A group of curlews is called a curfew, a salon, or skein of curlews. Who thinks this up??!!
• Grant wrote book reviews for the TLS (Times Literary Supplement, UK literary periodical that I used to subscribe to) during the 1920s and 1930s, averaging over 60 per year! Over 1200 in all according to the TLS.
I am quibbling...I recommend this book. It was a good read. It lifted me out of the doldrums in which for a while I was reading books that did not interest me.
Overview of book:
• Maquita Gilroy is a Government clerk with a lovely sense of self-preservation.
• Anne Carey is drifting between jobs, bored of her fiancé, and longing for something to give her life meaning. Then she meets Philip Dampier, a married man whose plays she admires.
• Petunia Garry, a beautiful teenager chorus girl with no background and dubious morals, is swept up by an idealistic soldier, who is determined to mold her into what he wants his wife to be.
• Gertrude Denby, an Admiral’s daughter and an endlessly patients companion to an irritating employer, is so very tired of living out her life in hired rooms.
• These latchkey ladies live alone or in shared rooms in London at the end of the First World War. They are determined to use their new freedoms, but they tread a fine line between their independence and disaster.
Quotes I liked out of the book a lot:
• Latchkey ladies, letting themselves in and out of dismal rooms, being independent and hating it. All very well for people with gifts and professions, artists or writers. But for us, the ordinary ones, a latch key is a terrible symbol.
• Following rumination is from Anne Carey...just a refreshing thought and something I agree with her about...I’d like to experience just for an hour in some cases, a minute in others, a month in others, the ability to be in somebody or something else. What are they experiencing? How do they see the world? ...“I’d like to be a curlew (Jim: a bird), to know how it feels,” Anne said. And I’d like to be a rabbit jumping through the heather, and a red deer hiding in the ferns, planning how to escape from the hunters, and a great heavy cart-horse ploughing the land. I’d like to be able just to taste life in all those ways, and in hundreds of human ways. We never get enough of anything.”
Reviews:
• https://bookishlyabroad.com/2022/03/2...
• I couldn’t gain access to this without taking out a subscription to the newspaper: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/la...
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2023/...
Notes:
• A group of curlews is called a curfew, a salon, or skein of curlews. Who thinks this up??!!
• Grant wrote book reviews for the TLS (Times Literary Supplement, UK literary periodical that I used to subscribe to) during the 1920s and 1930s, averaging over 60 per year! Over 1200 in all according to the TLS.
December 20, 2025
Getting a copy of this book was a challenge, but eventually it came to me through an Interlibrary Loan. It was not what I expected, and I nearly gave up on after about 20 pages or so. I gave it some more time, and tried to look past the very dated and occasionally offensive (by modern standards) language.
Life in London for a single woman trying to support herself during World War I was incredibly dreary. There was a huge surplus of women due to the men serving in the war, and the women, some of whom did war work of various kinds in offices (or factories), were also called "redundant" women. These women, sneered at for being without men to support them (financially and otherwise), were scorned by society, as though it were their fault that they were on their own.
The British also use the term "made redundant" for people who have lost their jobs in layoffs. While it makes sense, I find it incredibly distasteful, as though the people affected have no value. That is how they are portrayed to a great extent in this book, where the lead characters struggle with their situation, staying in grim boardinghouses where they eat bad food and don't have enough heat.
While every book doesn't have to be cheerful, cozy, or have a happy ending, this was a bit too much for me, and I am gladly returning it to the library...
Life in London for a single woman trying to support herself during World War I was incredibly dreary. There was a huge surplus of women due to the men serving in the war, and the women, some of whom did war work of various kinds in offices (or factories), were also called "redundant" women. These women, sneered at for being without men to support them (financially and otherwise), were scorned by society, as though it were their fault that they were on their own.
The British also use the term "made redundant" for people who have lost their jobs in layoffs. While it makes sense, I find it incredibly distasteful, as though the people affected have no value. That is how they are portrayed to a great extent in this book, where the lead characters struggle with their situation, staying in grim boardinghouses where they eat bad food and don't have enough heat.
While every book doesn't have to be cheerful, cozy, or have a happy ending, this was a bit too much for me, and I am gladly returning it to the library...
February 22, 2022
As the synopsis says, this book was first written in 1921. This book will delight anyone who is really into fiction written about a time and place by a person who lived in that era.
While this book starts out as being about all sorts of "latchkey" ladies, it dwindles to being about two separate women. What would have been scandalous in the time period is nothing in this day and age.
This book was written quite dramatically with the typical usage of overly flowery language. Historically correct, but annoying nowadays.
One thing that did help was that the editors added an electronic format (for the e-book version) of footnotes. This enabled me to look up, when necessary, any archaic expressions that I did not understand. this was a very slow read for me.
ARC supplied by the re-publisher and NetGalley.
While this book starts out as being about all sorts of "latchkey" ladies, it dwindles to being about two separate women. What would have been scandalous in the time period is nothing in this day and age.
This book was written quite dramatically with the typical usage of overly flowery language. Historically correct, but annoying nowadays.
One thing that did help was that the editors added an electronic format (for the e-book version) of footnotes. This enabled me to look up, when necessary, any archaic expressions that I did not understand. this was a very slow read for me.
ARC supplied by the re-publisher and NetGalley.
July 17, 2024
While not a page turner it became more interesting after a slow start - I kept reminding myself this book was written over 100 years ago (1921) and maybe readers now expect their reads to propell along from the start. Some of the characters, in fact most, were not particularly likeable but again this was written post WW1 and the author's life experiences and views will have been far removed from ours in 2024. A sensor would also have screened this book which covered many issues - sex before marriage, suicide, pregnancy, widowhood, war, work,friendships, lesbianisam to name a few. It's well worth a read to take yourself into a different century and question what has and hasn't changed for women here in the UK and worldwide, especially as women's rights are under threat again.
Want to read
February 21, 2023I learned of this book via this review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2023/...
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