Synopses & 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.
Synopsis
A "very intelligent, sensitive, and compelling" novel of adolescent rebellion and sexual awakening at a girls' boarding school (Anthony Burgess).
Set in a repressive British girls' boarding school in the late 1920s--where not only sexuality but femininity is squashed--Rosemary Manning's "wonderful" 1962 novel is the coming-of-age story of sixteen-year-old Rachel, a sensitive, bright, and innocent student (The Guardian). Rachel finds refuge from the Spartan conditions, strict regime, fierce discipline, and formidable headmistress at Bampfield in a secret garden. She also finds friendship there, with a rebellious girl named Margaret.
As Margaret has her mind expanded by a scandalous tome entitled The Well of Loneliness, she engages in a bold, forbidden act--the ultimate transgression at Bampfield--and Rachel is drawn into the turmoil. Confronted with the persecution of her friend and troubled by a growing awareness of her own sensuality, Rachel faces an impossible choice that drives her to desperate measures.
Selected as one of the Top 10 Lesbian Books by the Guardian, "Rosemary Manning's unjustly forgotten novel is a deft depiction of innocence and the forces of hypocrisy, paranoia, and self-hatred that betray innocence" (Lillian Faderman, author of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers).
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-[191]).