The endpapers are taken from 'Wychwood', a 1939 screen - printed satin furnishing fabric designed by Noldi Soland for Helios; the pattern has an appropriately rural simplicity.

AFTERWORD BY DAVID CONVILLE
536p PERSEPHONE BOOKS ISBN 1903155304

The setting for this, the third novel by Dorothy Whipple we 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 Kitchen Scene' 1929, FW Elwell © The Estate of FW Elwell