Synopsis
Lolly Willowes is a satirical comedy of manners incorporating elements of fantasy. It is the story of a middle-aged spinster who moves to a country village to escape her controlling relatives and takes up the practice of witchcraft. [2] The novel opens at the turn of the twentieth century, with Laura Willowes moving from Somerset to London to live with her brother Henry and his family. The move comes in the wake of the death of Laura's father, Everard, with whom she lived at the family home, Lady Place. Laura's other brother, James, moves into Lady Place with his wife and his young son, Titus, with the intention to continue the family's brewing business. However, James dies suddenly of a heart attack and Lady Place is rented out, with the view that Titus, once grown up, will return to the home and run the business.
After twenty years of being a live-in aunt Laura finds herself feeling increasingly stifled both by her obligations to the family and by living in London. When shopping for flowers on the Moscow Road, Laura decides she wishes to move to the Chiltern Hills and, buying a guide book and map to the area, she picks the village of Great Mop as her new home. Against the wishes of her extended family, Laura moves to Great Mop and finds herself entranced and overwhelmed by the chalk hills and beech woods. Though sometimes disturbed by strange noises at night, she settles in and befriends her landlady and a poultry farmer.
After a while, Titus decides to move from his lodgings in Bloomsbury to Great Mop and be a writer, rather than managing the family business. Titus's renewed social and domestic reliance on Laura make her feel frustrated that even living in the Chilterns she cannot escape the duties expected of women. When out walking, she makes a pact with a force that she takes to be Satan, to be free from such duties. On returning to her lodgings, she discovers a kitten, whom she takes to be Satan's emissary, and names him Vinegar, in reference to an old picture of witches' familiars. Subsequently, her landlady takes her to a Witches' Sabbath attended by many of the villagers.
Titus is plagued with misadventures, such as having his milk constantly curdle and falling into a nest of wasps. Finally, he proposes marriage to a London visitor, Pandora Williams, who has treated his wasp stings, and the two retreat to London. Laura, relieved, meets Satan at Mulgrave Folly and tells him that women are like 'sticks of dynamite' waiting to explode and that all women are witches even 'if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it's there – ready!' The novel ends with Laura acknowledging that her new freedom comes at the expense of knowing that she belongs to the 'satisfied but profoundly indifferent ownership' of Satan.
Reception and legacy
The novel was well received by critics on its publication. In France it was shortlisted for the Prix Femina and in the USA it was the very first Book Of The Month for the Book Club. [3]
Until the 1960s, the manuscript of Lolly Willowes was displayed in the New York Public Library. [3]
In a 1999 introduction to the novel's republication by New York Review Books, Alison Lurie wrote that "a woman who refuses the 'Aunt Lolly' role is, in the view of conventional society, a kind of witch, even if she does no evil," tying the novel to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own , noting that Warner "had spoken for [such women] first." [4]
Similarly, in her 2012 review of the novel, Lucy Scholes takes note of the feminist focus of the novel, as well as the fact that it predates the better known A Room of One's Own: "With its clear feminist agenda, Lolly Willowes holds its own among Townsend Warner's historical fiction, but it's also an elegantly enchanting tale that transcends its era." [5]
In 2014, Robert McCrum chose it as one of the 100 Best Novels in English, for his list for The Guardian . [3]
Margaret Alice Murray was an Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935. She served as president of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely over the course of her career.
Terence Hanbury "Tim" White was an English writer. He is best known for his Arthurian novels, which were published together in 1958 as The Once and Future King. One of his best known is the first of the series, The Sword in the Stone, which was published as a stand-alone book in 1938.
Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner was an English novelist, poet and musicologist, known for works such as Lolly Willowes, The Corner That Held Them, and Kingdoms of Elfin. Her paternal grandfather, The Reverend George Townsend Warner was headmaster of Newton Abbot Proprietary College in Devon where he had taught Arthur Quiller Couch, Bertram Fletcher Robinson and Percy Fawcett.
Ann Putnam was a primary accuser, at age 12, at the Salem Witch Trials of Massachusetts during the later portion of 17th-century Colonial America. Born 1679 in Salem Village, Essex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony, she was the eldest child of Thomas (1652–1699) and Ann Putnam (1661–1699).
Tituba was an enslaved Native American woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693.
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Mercy Lewis was an accuser during the Salem Witch Trials. She was born in Falmouth, Maine. Mercy Lewis, formally known as Mercy Allen, was the child of Philip Lewis and Mary (Cass) Lewis.
Rebecca Nurse was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was fully exonerated fewer than twenty years later.
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Valentine Ackland was an English poet, and life partner of novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner. Their relationship was strained by Ackland’s infidelities and alcoholism, but survived for nearly forty years. Both were closely involved with communism, remaining under continued scrutiny by the authorities. Ackland’s poetry did not become widely noticed until after her death, when her reflective, confessional style was more in vogue, and left-wing writers of the 1930s had become a popular topic.
Children have been accused of witchcraft, both historically and in contemporary times, in societies that harbor beliefs about the existence of witches and black magic. These accusations have led to punishment, imprisonment, torture, and execution of children.
Sir Percy Carter Buck was an English music educator, writer, organist, and composer.
Wendy Mulford is a Welsh-born poet, associated with the contemporary avant garde scene, with the British Poetry Revival, and with the development of feminist poetry in the 1970s. Her poetry has been viewed as "difficult to categorise" and as "multi- and non-linear". Her early poetry had particularly strong feminist and Marxist elements, but latterly she has moved towards more personal themes.
Sonatina is a work for piano solo in three movements composed in 1926–27 by John Ireland (1879–1962). He dedicated it to his friend, the conductor and BBC music producer, Edward Clark.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is an American comic book series published by Archie Horror, an imprint of Archie Comics, beginning in 2014. The series is a darker take on the characters and setting of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It is written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, with art by Robert Hack, and is inspired by the appearances of Sabrina in Aguirre-Sacasa's other Archie series, Afterlife with Archie.
Stephanie Dowrick is an Australian writer, Interfaith Minister and social activist. She is the author of more than 20 books of fiction and non-fiction, five of them best-sellers. She was a publisher in Australia and the UK, where she co-founded The Women's Press, London.
The Women's Press was a feminist publishing company established in London in 1977. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, The Women's Press was a highly visible presence, publishing feminist literature.
Scaredy Cats is a fantasy comedy children's television series created by Anna McRoberts. The series stars Sophia Reid-Gantzert, Daphne Hoskins, and Ava Augustin as Willa Ward, Scout, and Lucy, 12-year-old girls who learn about witchcraft. Other main cast members include Carolyn Taylor, Lauren McGibbon, Zibby Allen, Rhys Slack, Fred Ewanuick, April Amber Telek, Bill Reiter, and Michael Teigen. Released on October 1, 2021, on Netflix, the series has received generally positive responses.
Lolly is a hypocorism for various given names, including the English name Laura. Young children often have difficulty in pronouncing the letter r, which resulted in nicknames like Lolly that substitute the letter l for r. Other examples include Dolly for Dorothy, Hallie for Harriet, Molly or Polly for Mary, and Sally for Sarah.
