I hurried on with my reminiscences, playing them out as it might be on a length of rope to reach a group of human figures marooned in time past, myself among them. . .


Rebecca, the heroine of The Ballad and the Source, is now a grown woman in a changed world. Reeling from the betrayal of her married lover, she arrives alone at a small Caribbean island, where she encounters a splendidly eccentric British expatriate community. But it is former ace pilot Johnny - now a misanthropic recluse, nursing his own suffering - who reminds her of the life-affirming potential of love. As they embark on a passionate affair, Rebecca begins to listen to the voices from her past - reminding her of the girl she was and the woman she could become.


'Full of her sensibility, her funniness, her own particular acumen . . . beautifully written and devised' ELIZABETH JANE HOWARD


'No English writer has told of the pains of women in love more truly or more movingly than Rosamond Lehmann' MARGHANITA LASKI


'Lehmann legitimised a type of writing that took on deep personal themes' ENGLISH PEN