Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs -1915- reprinted in the British Library Women Writers Series - 2021 with a Preface by Lucy Evans and an Afterword by Simon Thomas

 Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs - 1915- British Library Women Writers Edition-2021- with a Preface by Lucy Evans and an Afterword by Simon Thomas

"Part of a curated collection of forgotten works by early to mid-century women writers, the British Library Women Writers series highlights the best middlebrow fiction from the 1910s to the 1960s, offering escapism, popular appeal and plenty of period detail to amuse, surprise and inform".- From The British Library

Winifred Boggs - 1874 to 1931

There are currently 15 works in the British Library Women Writers Series. I am hoping to read through them. Most are fairly brief and all include author bios and expert commentaries. The Kindle Editions are under $4.00.

British Women Writers Works I have so far read

Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes -1935

The Love Child by Edith Olivier - 1927

Tea is So Intoxicating by Ursula Bloom (writing as Mary Essex)- 1950

Father by Elizabeth Von Armin - 1931

The Tree of Heaven by Mary Sinclair- 1917

O, The Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn - 1943

Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs- 1915

So far Sally on the Rocks is my favourite in the series.

As the story opens Sally Lunton is in Paris, World War One has just begun. Sally's six year relationship with a young English man has just ended. She has been making a little money as a painter but not nearly enough to be comfortable. At 31 she knows she must find a husband before she gets much older. Plus she no longer feels save in Paris. She decides to return the small English town of Little Crampton, under the care of her dedicated guardian. Her parents are deceased and she has no siblings.

As in other books in the series, there is a rich busybody older woman who asserts herself in a very judgemental way into the lives of residents. "The sooner you discovered that Miss Maggie was neither to be defied nor ignored, but appeased, the better. Also that it would save time and trouble to tell her your own version of the worst. No matter how small the skeleton she pounced upon, the lady could make its bones rattle so loudly that you would be deafened". In Little Cranpton men were allowed to have a premarital adventure but a hint of this could destroy the reputation of a woman.

  Sally is advised to set her sights on Mr. Bixby, a bachelor in his forties who manages the local bank. Besides his salary he receives £3000 pounds a year from an inheritance, quite a good income. She has some competition as a widow is also after him. Mr. Bixby is smug, a bit portly and way to hung up on the advise his late mother left him about Women in a book she wrote.

 Men are already returning, broken, and traumatised from the trenches, and others were being hailed heroes merely for wearing a uniform. Mr Bixby is over the age to enlist and he basically says he is to valuable to be in the war. He seems jealous of the appeal of soldiers to women.  

Another important character enters. An officer who disobeyed the command of his superior. This leads to his entire command but for three men being killed. He is falsely branded a Coward. He is also from Little Crampton and has returned there. 

I do not want to give up much of the really quite involving plot.

One thing I was really struck by was how antiwar the novel was. Not to be hyperbolic in my companion but I recently read Persians by Euripides and I was reminded of the opening speech of the Persian messenger describing the horrible devastation inflicted on Persian soldiers forced to fight in a war meaningless to them. From the mouth of Sally:

"This war reaping the youth and manhood and strength of the world, robbing us not only of this generation, but the next, is horrible, but it still rages on. God looks down from His high Heaven, but He does not put back the sword in its scabbard. Death is horrible, and life sometimes more."

Readers now will not probably accept the treatment of alcoholism as a character weakness.

There are numerous exciting plot turns, interesting minor characters, some stuff for foodies. We know what the characters look like, how they dress and what they are hiding.  I felt I was there in Little Crampton.

I found Sally on the Rocks a delightful work

Next on my list is Chesterson Square by E. F. Young.

Mel Ulm