A quietly devastating novel about the realities of life for single
working women in the 1920s and the systems that failed them.
There is something appalling in this warfare, silent, secret and
unrelenting, that is waged by polite women with smiling faces and gentle
manner, against one another.
Miss Cullen finds herself in a dreadful predicament. Four years from
retirement, she can no longer meet the educational standards expected
nor control her pupils at Besley High School for girls. She knows that
no other school will hire her now, but if she is sacked or doesn't work
until she's 60, she will lose her pension. Her only hope is to hang on.
But her poor exam results affect the standing of the whole school.
Her colleagues embark on a campaign against her to save their own
positions and she retaliates by involving the school inspector. Into
this hostile environment comes Viola Kennedy, a young new teacher full
of optimism and ideas, who instead gets caught up in the conspiracies
and swirling resentments.
Part of a curated collection of forgotten works by early to
mid-century women writers, the British Library Women Writers series
highlights the best middlebrow fiction from the 1910s to the 1960s,
offering escapism, popular appeal and plenty of period detail to amuse,
surprise and inform.
