The Constant Nymph

Description

A publishing sensation in the 1920s - 'It was the age of The Constant Nymph' (Jessica Mitford) - this acclaimed novel about a bohemian family and an unconventional romance is ripe for rediscovery. Avant-garde composer Albert Sanger lives in a ramshackle chalet in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by his 'Circus' of assorted children, admirers and a slatternly mistress. The family and their home life may be chaotic, but visitors fall into an enchantment, and the claims of respectable life or upbringing fall away. When Sanger dies, his Circus must break up and each find a more conventional way of life. But fourteen-year-old Teresa is already deeply in love- for her, the outside world holds nothing but tragedy.

Margaret Kennedy was born in London on 23 April 1896, the eldest of four children. Her first book, a commissioned work of history, was published in 1922 and was soon followed by her first work of fiction, The Ladies of Lyndon (1923). Her second novel, The Constant Nymph (1924), became a worldwide bestseller, and with it Kennedy became a well-known and highly praised writer. Kennedy went on to write fifteen further novels, many of which were critically commended - Troy Chimneys (1953) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. She also wrote plays, adapting both The Constant Nymph and its sequel The Fool of the Family very successfully. The former opened in the West End in 1926, starring Noel Coward followed by John Gielgud, to great acclaim. Three different film versions of The Constant Nymph, featuring stars of the time such as Ivor Novello and Joan Fontaine, were equally popular. She also published a study of Jane Austen (1950) and a work of literary criticism, The Outlaws on Parnassus, in 1958. Kennedy died 31 July 1967. Writer Beverley Nichols said of Kennedy- 'There is a wildness in her mind ; a galloping, untutored spirit'.

Splendid * Spectator * It's a novel about ideas...as well as the sort of delicious and merciless emotions that can make people exuberant or desperate * The Atlantic * She is not only a romantic but an anarchist, and she knows the ways of men and women very well indeed -- Anita Brookner Margaret Kennedy caught just the taste of the time, mixing a stolid domestic Englishness with 'Continental' bohemians * Irish Times * Miss Kennedy . . . finds herself well to the front among novelists, men or women, of today. Its theme is the clash between two incompatible worlds, and its solution is reached through tragedy * New York Times (1924) *