Lolly Willowes

Peta's Review

Sometimes reading can be serendipitous, opening a window onto an undiscovered treasure.  This happened for me when reading Harriet Baker’s Rural Hours, a beautiful exploration of three unconventional women who were profoundly changed after moving to the country.  The women are Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) and Rosamond Lehmann (1901-1990), all three of whom kept extensive dairies of their time in the country, recording their impressions of the landscape and the quiet rhythm they felt in their country homes. In her essay ‘The Essex Marshes,’ Warner writes that in the country she experienced the “mysterious sensation of being where [she] wanted to be, socketed in the universe, and passionately quiescent.” Feeling “socketed” by a writer I confess I was unfamiliar with, I began my deep dive into her life and work.

Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner was born in Harrow, in the UK, in 1893. Her oeuvre comprises seven novels, a biography of the English writer T.H. White (best known for his novels about the Arthurian legend), countless short stories, translations, poetry collections and a music score. Moving from London to Dorset, she met and fell in love with the poet Valentine Ackland. The couple set up house in “Miss Green's cottage” in 1930, moving in 1937 to a cottage in Maiden Newton, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Known as the “leading Communists of Wessex,” the couple collaborated extensively on essays and other political writing, and both came under the continued scrutiny of the authorities.

Warner’s novel Lolly Willowes, published in 1926, was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Award, establishing her as a new literary talent. The first of her seven novels, Lolly Willowes tells the story of Laura Willowes, a middle-aged woman who, on the death of her father, is taken in by her brother Henry and his wife Caroline. To their children she is “Aunt Lolly.”  Henry and Caroline earnestly introduce Laura to eligible men in the hope that she will marry one of them, but Laura is determined not to marry at all. One day, about to buy some flowers, she has an epiphany: she imagines herself walking somewhere in the countryside, breathing the fresh country air and feeling the soft breezes on her skin.  So instead of flowers, she buys a map, studies it closely and decides she will move to a tiny village in Buckinghamshire, where she intends to live modestly, and more importantly, on her own. Her family, predictably, think she is mad, but also certain that she will see the error of her decision and promptly return home. But settling in a small cottage in the tiny village in Great Mop, Laura gradually finds herself. And far from meeting an eligible bachelor, she meets Satan! You’ll have to read the book to find out what becomes of her.

Laura Willowes defies Edwardian social traditions and conventions. Despite the hardship she faces relocating to a new home, she has never felt more free and more true to herself.  In Great Mop she finds herself among women who “know their own hearts … how incalculable, how extraordinary they are.”  Laura is prepared to defy society with these women and determine her own path forward.  Although the novel might initially strike you as genteelly Edwardian story about an unmarried woman, in fact it has impressive depth. Warner presents an astute commentary on the seismic changes happening in Europe after WWI, and foreshadows the impending war and the human cost that will result.

Lolly Willowes is a tender, funny, poignant story.  As The Guardian describes it, the novel “subverts every theme it touches on: gender roles, family love, social convention, religious propriety.”  I am finding that reading Warner’s novels concurrently with those of Virginia Woolf’s extremely satisfying.  Both writers found solace and healing in country life, so much so that they began pushing boundaries in both their writing and personal lives. I am feeling both “socketed” and extremely grateful to have stumbled across such a strong, independent female writer like Warner, who not only defied social norms but gave us the delightful Laura Willowes. 

Publisher's Review 

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Lolly Willowes, so gentle and accommodating, has depths no one suspects. When she suddenly announces that she is leaving London and moving, alone, to the depths of the countryside, her overbearing relatives are horrified. But Lolly has a greater, far darker calling than family- witchcraft.