The Ballad and the Source

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The Ballad and the Source
TheBalladAndTheSource.jpg
1945 US edition (publ. Reynal & Hitchcock)
Author Rosamond Lehmann
Publisher William Collins, Sons
Publication date
1944

The Ballad and the Source is a novel by Rosamond Lehmann, first published in 1944 by Collins in the UK. [1] Set in Edwardian England, the book deals with the relationship between Rebecca, a young girl, and Sibyl Jardine, a complicated and domineering elderly woman.

Contemporary reviewers compared the novel to the work of Henry James, though the book's feminism was then considered unfashionable. [2]

Lehmann returned to the character of Rebecca in her last novel, A Sea-Grape Tree (1976), which follows her as an adult dealing with betrayal by a married lover.

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References

  1. "The Ballad and the Source". Kirkus Reviews . 1 April 1945. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  2. Susan Janet Kaplan, 'Rosamond Lehmann's The Ballad and the Source: A Confrontation with "The Great Mother"', Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer 1981), pp.127-145