This Is the End (1917) is a novel by Stella Benson. Based on the
author's experience in the movement for women's suffrage, This Is the
End is a story of identity and social class set in the London
neighborhood of Hackney. As Jay attempts to break from her restrictive
past, her brother Kew returns from the First World War scarred by his
experiences and disillusioned with life at home. Benson's meditative,
diaristic prose guides the reader along the paths of change and
confrontation faced by her protagonists, immersing them in the
tumultuous decade in which the novel was written. "This is the end, for
the moment, of all my thinking, this is my unfinal conclusion. There is
no reason in tangible things, and no system in the ordinary ways of the
world. Hands were made to grope, and feet to stumble, and the only
things you may count on are the unaccountable things. System is a fairy
and a dream, you never find system where or when you expect it. There
are no reasons except reasons you and I don't know." Guided by a
philosophical sense of the world, Jay--formerly Jane Elizabeth--longs to
escape the confines of her life in the countryside. Without telling her
family, she leaves for London and adopts a new identity, exposing
herself for the first time in her life to the rhythms of working-class
existence. When her brother Kew returns from the Great War and fails to
find her at home, he comes to the city in search of his sister. Bonded
by tragedy, the two orphans grow to respect one another as adults, both
of them scarred in their own way by the expectations placed on young men
and women in a decade of tremendous cultural change. With a beautifully
designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of
Stella Benson's This Is the End is a classic work of British
literature reimagined for modern readers.
