You look at the matter one way and I the other – the man’s and the woman’s way. Your wife forgave you and married you just the same, as women, wise or foolish, do the whole world over. ”There is no question of that, only you are a little illogical, aren’t you? You are to be permitted to forget, but never I. When Sally is asked, by her ex-inamorato, if she can forgive him, she replies:

I shan’t spoil all the plot, but Sally’s lover from France comes back. Sally on the Rocks is wonderfully feminist at many junctures. She doesn’t seek power or position – just stability. She is like a much more likeable Becky Sharp. It is a woman who has been broken by the world seeking to play the world’s rules against themselves. All is fair in love and war, perhaps – but there is neither love nor war here. She comes back to Little Crampton.Īs she says, ”You’re not out for romance at thirty-one it’s a business.” She is truly fond of Mr Lovelady, but she does not want to end up dependent on him – rather, she sets her cap at Mr Bingley and is willing to do whatever it takes to become his wife. She is in France, wary of the probable coming invasion – for the war is underway – and she has is licking the wounds of an unsuccessful love affair. It is enough to bring Sally back to the village where she grew up, adopted by the vicar Mr Lovelady, who is still in residence but hears little from his ward. ”He’s so safe, and of course there’s the house and ‘perks’, as well as the fifteen hundred,” she writes, none too subtly. Little Crampton is ruled over by Miss Maggie Hopkins – an unofficial position, but her gossiping, her rigid adherence to morality when it can shame others, and her determination to root out the truth in any situation mean that she is feared and also a vital source of information.Īs the novel opens, she writes to Sally, hinting that the curate, Mr Bingley, is looking for a wife. But how few outsiders would be interested in it, because any village would be equally convinced that it is the first and best village in its region. Little Crampton is an insular world, assured of its own superiority, and not necessarily very welcoming to outsiders. Winifred Boggs starts us with the sort of village community that has been the basis for many of the great works of literature. Sally on the Rocks, from 1915, is a really wonderful book with a heroine I won’t forget in a hurry. I bought a couple of books by Winifred Boggs, as she sounded like the sort of author I’d like, from the scant information I could find online – and the gamble has paid off.

Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs