In memory of Constance Holme

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Edith Constance Holme (October 7, 1880 - June 17, 1955), married name Punchard, was an English writer and playwright. She was born in Milnthorpe, Westmorland (now in Cumbria), the youngest of fourteen children. Her novels are set in the old county of Westmorland, where except for brief periods at school in Birkenhead and Blackheath, she lived most of her life.

Many of Holme's works explore class relationships; her first two books focus on the three-way relationships between landowners, tenant farmers and land agents (Holme's father and her husband were both land agents). Her 1921 novel The Splendid Fairing won the Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse.

Uniquely among twentieth-century authors, all of Holme's novels and her book of short stories were published in the Oxford World's Classics series. The Lonely Plough was also, in 1936, among the first novels published by Penguin. Despite this, her reputation faded quickly after her death; indeed, it had been questioned even during her own lifetime, with the Saturday Review commenting in 1938, "We are still hunting for someone who has actually read Constance Holme's novels." Some of her books were reprinted during the 1970s; however, her final work, The Jasper Sea, remains unpublished.

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