Book description
St. Mary’s Priory at Silfelde-on-Loddon is typical of the small
religious houses which were the first to be dissolved by Henry VIII.
Few of the nine inmates have a true religious vocation. One, for
instance, is there to escape an unwanted marriage, another has been
forced into religion by her parents.
Driven from their secure communal life, the Sisters, emotionally
ill-equipped to face the turbulent outside world, seek fulfilment in
what is, to them, a strange land. Mingling with pilgrims, mummers,
vagabonds and rogues, burgesses, country folk and watermen, some find a
haven, others tragedy. But all discover in some form or another, a
purpose and a meaning to their lives.
“The picture is so life-like, so detailed in its description that the
reader feels himself to be out there on the muddy roads and dangerous
heaths, among the gypsies, the idiot-folk and the satanic murderous
beggars.” Punch
Josephine Bell was born Doris Bell Collier in Manchester, England.
Between 1910 and 1916 she studied at Godolphin School, then trained at
Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. At the University College
Hospital in London she was granted M. R.C. S. and L. R.C. P. in 1922,
and a M. B. B. S. in 1924.
Bell was a prolific author, writing forty-three novels and numerous
uncollected short stories during a forty-five year period.
Many of her short stories appeared in the London Evening Standard
. Using her pen name she wrote numerous detective novels beginning in
1936, and she was well-known for her medical mysteries. Her early books
featured the fictional character Dr. David Wintringham who worked at
Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician. She helped
found the Crime Writers' Association in 1953 and served as chair during
1959-60.
