British Library Women Writers #10: Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs

It’s less than a year since I first blogged about Sally on the Rocks here (though I read it earlier in 2020, and only blogged after my re-read) – and here we are, it’s the tenth book published in the British Library Women Writers series. I am so excited for people to meet her!

I’m writing about each of the series in turn, and a lot of this post is copied from my original review. Before I repost that, though, a bit of background into its appearance on the list. I think it’s the first BLWW title that I discovered while deliberately hunting out little-known and out of print books – I have actually been going through Scott’s incredible list of British and Irish women writers 1910-1960, hunting out the ones who sound particularly interesting. You have to get through a lot of books to find a real gem, of course, and Sally on the Rocks wasn’t even the Boggs title I intended to read.

The title that made me want to explore Boggs was The Indignant Spinsters, since it sounds so up my street. I did get a copy, but I bought Sally on the Rocks too because there were a few more copies available and rather cheaper. Why not, thought I. Well, now I’ve read both books – and Sally on the Rocks is much, much better. I suggested it to the British Library with a fervent urgency, and they agreed that it should be back in print.

My afterwords for the series are supposed to identify particular issues of the period affecting women, which are brought out in the novel. There wasn’t one clear issue in Sally – except for the different morals facing men and women, which is spelled out so clearly in the novel that all I could really do was echo them. So, alongside, I wrote about money and dug up some really interesting contemporary reviews. As always, I start wondering if I’ll have enough to say, and find that I have to start cutting back.

What was much harder was the bio – it’s impossible to find anything beyond the most rudimentary info. Because she died more than 70 years ago, it’s out of copyright and there weren’t any family members who could clue us in a bit (which proved so useful when writing about Dorothy Evelyn Smith). I’m hoping the book being back in print might bring some info out of the woodwork.

And the book itself – here we go: Winifred Boggs starts us with the sort of village community that has been the basis for many of the great works of literature. Little Crampton is an insular world, assured of its own superiority, and not necessarily very welcoming to outsiders. But how few outsiders would be interested in it, because any village would be equally convinced that it is the first and best village in its region. Little Crampton is ruled over by Miss Maggie Hopkins – an unofficial position, but her gossiping, her rigid adherence to morality when it can shame others, and her determination to root out the truth in any situation mean that she is feared and also a vital source of information.

As the novel opens, she writes to Sally, hinting that the bank manager and sort-of-curate, Mr Bingley, is looking for a wife. ”He’s so safe, and of course there’s the house and ‘perks’, as well as the fifteen hundred,” she writes, none too subtly. It is enough to bring Sally back to the village where she grew up, adopted by the vicar Mr Lovelady, who is still in residence but hears little from his ward. She is in France, wary of the probable coming invasion – for the war is underway – and she has is licking the wounds of an unsuccessful love affair. She comes back to Little Crampton.

As she says, ”You’re not out for romance at thirty-one; it’s a business.” She is truly fond of Mr Lovelady, but she does not want to end up dependent on him – rather, she sets her cap at Mr Bingley and is willing to do whatever it takes to become his wife. All is fair in love and war, perhaps – but there is neither love nor war here. It is a woman who has been broken by the world seeking to play the world’s rules against themselves. She is like a much more likeable Becky Sharp. She doesn’t seek power or position – just stability.

Sally on the Rocks is wonderfully feminist at many junctures. I shan’t spoil all the plot, but Sally’s lover from France comes back. When Sally is asked, by her ex-inamorato, if she can forgive him, she replies:

”There is no question of that, only you are a little illogical, aren’t you? You are to be permitted to forget, but never I. Yet you have paid no price. Your wife forgave you and married you just the same, as women, wise or foolish, do the whole world over. You look at the matter one way and I the other – the man’s and the woman’s way. You ran no real risk of losing your wife by confessing. I lose everything in this world; some think everything in the next. No, such things are not on the same footing, after all.”

Most wonderful is Boggs’ take on a love triangle. Mrs Dalton, a widow with a young daughter, is also keen to persuade Mr Bingley to marry her. We have seen, hundreds of times, the two women pitted against each other for the ‘prize’ of the man. Here, the women candidly agree that Mr Bingley is a repellent prospect but the financially savvy one, acknowledge that they will both fight hard to win his hand, but that they will play fair. There is a sense of comrades-in-arms between them that I haven’t seen in a novel before.

I should say, Sally on the Rocks is very funny, as well as having a lot to say about the status of women at the time. Sometimes simultaneously. My favourite, extended scene was when Sally takes Mr Bingley off on a walk in the woods, deliberately letting them get lost – her plan being that, lost alone with her in the woods, under a full moon, he will feel duty-bound AND romantically inclined to propose.

But much of the humour, as well as the enjoyment in the book, comes from Sally. She is determined, witty, bloody but unbowed. She is even rather ruthless, but there is plenty of humanity in her too – and, of course, there is another man who catches her eye. He is not at all the savvy choice. I shall leave it to your imagination to decide which path she ultimately takes…

I’m so delighted that more people will meet Sally, and am very impatient to hear people’s thoughts. Luckily, the four new British Library Women Writers titles will all be part of a blog tour throughout October and November – I can’t wait!