Jump to content

The Ballad and the Source

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ballad and the Source
1945 US edition (publ. Reynal & Hitchcock)
AuthorRosamond Lehmann
PublisherWilliam 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.

References

[edit]
  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