Rosemary Manning's earlier novel (The Shape of Innocence-
Doubleday- 1961- p. 61) was more acerb. This, no less able but
softer in tone and suspiciously autobiographical, is a small
English novel of sensibility and acuity again framed within the
sequestered life of a school. The school is Bampfield, no passion
flower hotel, ??here a "mortifying regime of cold water, draughts,
outdoor drill and bad food" is ??pheld along with the conviction
that young ladies are to be brought up as public school boys in the
repudiation of the biological facts. The story is told
(alternately- and rather disconcertingly- in both the first and
third person) as it involves Rachel Curgenven, ardently
intellectual, avidly romantic, her head full of the classics,
poetry and "free and glorious love". The reality proves otherwise
and is exposed in the secret garden she has found which is later
used by two other girls engaged in a "nameless vice"... This is the
only dramatic incident in conclusion to a slight book which through
its niceties of insight and phrase seems perhaps more important
than it is. In any case, it is a pleasure to read. (Kirkus Reviews)
The Bampfield School for Girls is housed in a crumbling country
estate where "the physical standards are those of Dartmoor, the
religion perverted, and the games mistress a sadist"-and where love
between students is the ultimate crime. Into this world comes
sixteen-year-old Rachel, a young woman who loves the round
symmetries of Latin verse and the melancholy beauty of the Somerset
countryside. Rachel is drawn into the conflict between two of the
school's powerful figures. On one side is the formidable
headmistress, who preaches the virtues of self-control while
inviting teachers into her room at night. On the other side is
Rachel's classmate Margaret, who openly despises Bampfield, urges
Rachel to read "The Well of Loneliness" and sneaks out for trysts
with her beautiful friend Rena. Unwittingly, Rachel becomes caught
in a tangle of passions she does not fully understand, a pawn in a
moral struggle to which all innocence will be lost.
"Thank-you Feminist Press for making this gem of a story
available once again!" -- Lillian Faderman
"[Manning] has not only a fine ear for prose but a fine eye for
character. --"New York Times Book Review"
"A very intelligent, sensitive, and compelling book." --Anthony
Burgess
For course use in: lesbian literature, literature of education,
20th-century British literature, women's literature
Rosemary Manning 1911-1988 was the author of six novels, many of
them set in her native West Country of England, and two volumes of
autobiography.
Patricia Juliana Smith teaches English at the University of
California, Los Angeles, and is the author of Lesbian Panic:
Homoeroticism in Modern British Women's Fiction.
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