‘The echoing grove’, written by Rosamond Lehmann

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‘The echoing grove’, written by Rosamond Lehmann

Introduction by Jonathan Coe

First published in 1953, The Echoing Grove is one of Rosamond Lehmann’s most acclaimed novels. It tells the story of three characters – Rickie Masters, his wife Madeleine and her sister Dinah. Lehmann opens the novel with the two sisters in uneasy communion after Rickie’s premature death, a death which has made widows of them both. For many years now, Dinah, exotic and sensual, has conducted a clandestine affair with Rickie; Madeline, calm and resolute, has accepted that her marriage has been of limited success. With extraordinary insight, Rosamond Lehmann explores the sublimity, and the pain, of these fatally interrelated lives.

‘She makes a mood, an atmosphere, which is only hers, and is never forgotten … the inner voice of women talking to themselves about their love affairs, knowing that it’s hopeless, having to go ahead anyway, expecting the end as soon as it begins. That, of course, is what Rosamond Lehmann does best.’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Rosamond Lehmann is a novelist in the grand tradition, and, more than this, an innovator, the first writer to filter her stories through a woman’s feelings and perceptions. She succeeds in giving a unique account of the world seen through feminine eyes.’ ANITA BROOKNER, SPECTATOR

‘The atmosphere is true and magically expressed. Both beautifully and intricately constructed.’ LISTENER

Pages: 300

Rosamond Lehmann. (1953) The echoing grove. London, Flamingo.

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