Lolly Willowes - (Herald Classics) by Sylvia Townsend Warner (Paperback)

About the Book

Laura Willowes, known as "Lolly" to her relatives, is an invisible woman. She lives with her father in the countryside, until his death leads her to move in with her brother and sister-in-law, who live in London. She subsumes herself in being a good daughter, a good sister, and a good aunt: the perfect, dutiful spinster who can be counted on to do anything and complain about nothing.

But one cold, dreary, autumnal day, Lolly is struck by a great longing: Surely there is more to life than this? In an instant she resolves to leave London, her family, and her old life behind. Who wants to be a helpmeet when you can live alone, independently, in a tiny, remote village?

This resolution--and the panic it instills in Lolly's family--will lead to an even more surprising revelation: that Lolly Willowes would rather sell her soul to the Devil than become "dear old Aunt Lolly" ever again.

Book Synopsis

Laura Willowes, known as "Lolly" to her relatives, is an invisible woman. She lives with her father in the countryside, until his death leads her to move in with her brother and sister-in-law, who live in London. She subsumes herself in being a good daughter, a good sister, and a good aunt: the perfect, dutiful spinster who can be counted on to do anything and complain about nothing.

But one cold, dreary, autumnal day, Lolly is struck by a great longing: Surely there is more to life than this? In an instant she resolves to leave London, her family, and her old life behind. Who wants to be a helpmeet when you can live alone, independently, in a tiny, remote village?

This resolution--and the panic it instills in Lolly's family--will lead to an even more surprising revelation: that Lolly Willowes would rather sell her soul to the Devil than become "dear old Aunt Lolly" ever again.

Review Quotes

Praise for Lolly Willowes:

• "An act of defiance that gladdens the soul. Put simply, it's the story of a woman who becomes a witch [but] subverts any expectation prompted by that synopsis as gleefully as it subverts every theme it touches on: gender roles, family love, social convention, religious propriety...A great shout of life and individuality. " --Guardian (UK)
• "The book I'll be pressing into people's hands forever...it tells the story of a woman who rejects the life that society has fixed for her in favor of freedom...Tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid madness." --Helen Macdonald, New York Times bestselling author of H Is for Hawk
• "Witty, eerie, tender...her prose, in its simple, abrupt evocations, has something preternatural about it." --John Updike

Praise for Sylvia Townsend Warner:

• "A talent amounting to genius." --John Updike
• "Original, elegant, and hypnotically strange." --The New York Times
• "One of our most idiosyncratic, courageous and versatile writers." --Hermione Lee

About the Author

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) was a writer, musicologist, poet, and political activist. She began writing poetry in the early 1920s, publishing her best-known novel, Lolly Willowes, in 1926. In 1930, she moved to a village in Dorset, where she fell in love with the poet Valentine Ackland, who would become her lifelong partner. Ardently left wing, the two women became active in the Communist Party.