All About Books discussion

Week 52's pick is Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, first published in 1926.

I have to start quoting from the article backwards just because it so nicely nods towards our current non-fiction group read of A Room of One's Own:

"In the 1920s, the search for a life (or room) of one's own was a topical theme. The war had liberated millions of women (Townsend Warner had worked in a munitions factory) and wiped out a generation of young men. The role and responsibilities of widows and spinsters was a subject taken up by many writers, from Vera Brittain to D.H. Lawrence."

So in Townsend Warner's novel, Laura "Lolly" Willowes makes a bid for personal freedom after her father's death and moves to the country to escape her controlling relatives and to take up the art of witchcraft. According to the article, a year after Sylvia Townsend Warner "told her editor at Chatto & Windus that she had written a 'story about a witch' (...) Lolly Willowes had become the talk of the town. Today, Townsend Warner holds her place in this series as a proto-feminist who is also a major minor classic."

To read the article (in proper order) go here

Never heard of it again ...

I know the author but not the novel.

I have never heard of either the author or the book, but it sounds interesting. I think I'd like to read it.

Gill wrote: "I know the author but not the novel."

Ditto.

Haven't heard of either the author or the book. It sounds interesting, though.

I am fascinated by the lopsided female to male balance among those of marriagable age in post-WWI Britain. I must read this someday. I just want to mention Wake a recently published fictional story about four women and the men in their lives - both those who survived and those who died - that I thought quite good.

I've realised, after reading the article, that the reason I know this author's name is because her books were republished by Virago. The title that I know is Mr. Fortune's Maggot.m

Gill wrote: "I've realised, after reading the article, that the reason I know this author's name is because her books were republished by Virago. The title that I know is Mr. Fortune's Maggot.m"

LauraT wrote: "Never heard of it again ..."

This was a Book of the Month back in March '13 for Perks (a no-longer existant group many of us belonged to). My copy had Mr. Fortune's Maggot in it as well so those must be her 2 most well-known works.

A piece of trivia -- Lolly Willowes was the book that launched the American "Book of the Month Club" back in the 1920s.

Although I thought that the concept of the story was interesting, I didn't feel like Warner really pulled it off successfully.