'A very good novel indeed about the fragility and also the tenacity of love' commented the "Spectator" about this 1953 novel by Dorothy Whipple, which was ignored fifty years ago because 'editors are going mad for action and passion' (as she was told by her publisher). But this last novel by a writer whose books had previously been bestsellers is outstandingly good by any standards. Apparently 'a fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy marriage' (Nina Bawden in the Preface) yet 'it makes compulsive reading' in its description of an ordinary family ('Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife') struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl.Dorothy Whipple is a superb stylist, with a calm intelligence in the tradition of Mrs Gaskell (both wrote in the "Midlands" and had similar preoccupations). 'The prose is simple, the psychology spot on' said the "Telegraph", and John Sandoe Books commented: 'We have all delighted in this unjustly forgotten novel; it is well written and compelling'.

The main theme of "They Were Sisters" (1943) is that three sisters' choice of husband dictates whether they have homes, and whether, in their homes, they will be allowed to flourish, be tamed or repressed. We see three different choices and three different husbands: the best-friend, soul-mate husband of the one sister, who brings her great joy; the would-be companionable husband of another, who over-indulges and finally bores her; and, the bullying husband who turns a high-spirited, naive young girl into a deeply unhappy woman. It is the last husband, Geoffrey, who is the most horrifying character in "They Were Sisters". Man's cruelty to woman is a frequent theme in Dorothy Whipple's novels, but nowhere was there more scope for man to be cruel to his wife than in Britain before the reform of the divorce laws.As Celia Brayfield writes in her Persephone Preface: 'Coupled with their financial dependence, but largely taken for granted because it would have been a fact of life for Whipple's readers, is the bitter truth that the middle-class woman of this time had almost no chance of freeing herself from a bad husband. Even after the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937 a divorced woman suffered grave social disadvantages'. What has not changed is that some men are bullies and some women are married to them. 'Described as a woman who loves too much decades before those words became the title of a book about women drawn to dysfunctional partners, Charlotte marries Geoffrey, a boorish, hard-drinking salesman who swiftly evolves into a domestic dicator. Yet his blood-curdling sadism towards his wife and children is evoked without any physical violence or the use of a word stronger than 'damn". "They Were Sisters" is a compulsively readable but often harrowing novel by one of Persephone's best writers.

This is the sixth title by Dorothy Whipple that Persephone Books has published. The first was Someone at a Distance in 1999, and since then there have been They Knew Mr Knight, The Priory, They Were Sisters and The Closed Door and Other Stories. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day may be Persephone's bestselling title but Dorothy Whipple is their bestselling author - the first print run for HIGH WAGES is 7000, such has been the advance interest. HIGH WAGES (1930) is about a girl who works in a draper's shop just before WW1 and then sets up her own dress shop. It is as readable, touching and interesting as all of Dorothy Whipple's books. The Preface is by Jane Brocket, who has a very popular website about the domestic arts. She writes: 'As well as being a marvellously engrossing and deeply caring novel, High Wages has tremendous historical value. And because of the author's light touch, her enjoyment of the subject matter and her desire to tell a good story rather than lecture the reader, the book chimes in with serious present-day discussions of our consumer culture, concepts of 'retail therapy', debates about women's clothing, and the question of whether intelligent, educated women should be interested in something as frivolous as fashion. This is a gem of a novel with a very special, endearing character and charm.'

The setting for this, the third novel by Dorothy Whipple Persephone have published, is Saunby Priory, a large house somewhere in England which has seen better times. We are shown the two Marwood girls, who are nearly grown-up, their father, the widower Major Marwood, and their aunt; then, as soon as their lives have been described, the Major proposes marriage to a woman much younger than himself - and many changes begin.'"The Priory" is the kind of book I really enjoy', wrote Salley Vickers in the "Spectator", 'funny, acutely observed, written in clear, melodious but unostentatious prose, it deserves renewed recognition as a minor classic. Whipple is not quite Jane Austen class but she understands as well as Austen the enormous effects of apparently minor social adjustments...Christine is a true heroine: vulnerable, valient, appealing, and the portrait of her selfless maternal preoccupation, done without sentiment and utterly credible, is one of the best I have ever come across. The final triumph of love over adversity is described with a benevolent panache which left me feeling heartened about human nature...A delightful, well-written and clever book'.

'A very good novel indeed about the fragility and also the tenacity of love' commented the Spectator recently about this 1953 novel by Dorothy Whipple, which was ignored fifty years ago because 'editors are going mad for action and passion' (as she was told by her publisher). But this last novel by a writer whose books had previously been bestsellers is outstandingly good by any standards. Apparently 'a fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy marriage' (Nina Bawden in the Preface) yet 'it makes compulsive reading' in its description of an ordinary family ('Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife') struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl. Dorothy Whipple is a superb stylist, with a calm intelligence in the tradition of Mrs Gaskell (both wrote in the Midlands and had similar preoccupations). 'The prose is simple, the psychology spot on' said the Telegraph, and John Sandoe Books commented: 'We have all delighted in this unjustly forgotten novel; it is well written and compelling.'

These ten short stories are a selection made from three volumes of stories that Dorothy Whipple published in her lifetime. Five of them were read on BBC Radio 4 from 22-26 October.Dorothy Whipple's key theme is 'Live and Let Live'. And what she describes throughout her short stories are people, and particularly parents, who defy this maxim. For this reason her work is timeless, like all great writing. It is irrelevant that Dorothy Whipple's novels were set in an era when middle-class women expected to have a maid; when fish knives were used for eating fish; when children did what they were told. The moral universe she creates has not changed: there are bullies in every part of society; people try their best but often fail; they would like to be unselfish but sometimes are greedy.Like George Eliot, like Mrs Gaskell, like EM Forster, Dorothy Whipple describes men and women in their social milieu, which in her case is the inter-war period, and shows them being all- too human. But her books are not nostalgia reads either, any more than reading George Eliot or Forster is a nostalgia read, nor are they old-fashioned or simplistic. Her prose, it is true, is pure, uncluttered, straightforward, pared down to the bone and never labours the point; her subtlety is the reason why so many people generally those who have not read her overlook her excellence. But the TLS wrote in 1941, about her second volume of stories, After Tea, 'Nobody is more shrewd than Mrs. Whipple in hitting off domestic relations or the small foibles of everyday life' and in 1961, after the publication of Wednesday: 'Economy and absence of fuss these are Mrs. Whipple's outstanding virtues as a writer.'While Anthony Burgess, notorious for his dislike of 'women writers', commented in 1961 that 'these stories of the commonplace, with their commonplace-seeming style, are illuminating and startling.'Above all, Dorothy Whipple is a storyteller. Persephone has published four of her novels and each one is a page- turner; but it is a feat indeed to make a short story into a page-turner since normally a story is a photograph, an impression, an atmosphere. The plots are certainly 'quiet' Ernest and Alice oppress their daughter, a woman is divorced by her husband and only allowed to see her children on Wednesday afternoons, a man puts flowers on his late wife's grave but the effect on our empathy for, and understanding of, her characters is profound. Dorothy Whipple is a deeply observant and compassionate - and timeless writer; at last she is being acknowledged as the superb writer she is.

A Book Society Choice, shortlisted for the Femina-Vie Heureuse Prize, the second Dorothy Whipple novel we publish is also wonderfully well-written in a clear and straightforward style; yet 'this real treat' ("Sunday Telegraph") is far more subtle than it at first appears. The Blakes are an ordinary family: Celia looks after the house and Thomas works at the family engineering business in Leicester. The book begins when he meets Mr Knight, a financier as crooked as any on the front pages of our newspapers nowadays; and tracks his and his family's swift climb and fall.Part of the cause of the ensuing tragedy is Celia's innocence - blinkered by domesticity, she and her children are the 'victim of the turbulence of the outside world' (Postscript); but finally, through 'quiet tenacity and the refusal to let go of certain precious things, goodness does win out' (Afterword). And the "TLS" wrote: 'The portraits in the book are fired by Mrs Whipple's article of faith - the supreme importance of people.'