I am still surprised that I have discovered Sylvia Townsend Warner so late in my life. An amazing writer. She wrote "Summer Will Show" in the nineteen thirties and
some of its subject matter would have been unacceptable then. However, she wrote it
and succeeded in having it published. There is an extremely interesting account of
the French Revolution of 1848 and of Paris at that time.
The story tells us of certain events in the eighteen eighties that involved
Sophia Willoughby, a young aristocratic woman who has discovered that her husband is
having an affair with French mistress. She is the owner of the property and considerable land, having inherited it from her family. She therefor sends him away
to his mistress in France. Subsequent events cause her to travel to France to seek
him out.The Revolution begins almost as soon as she arrives. Being caught up in the
rioting, meeting her husbands mistress and finding herself unaccountably drawn to her, Sophia is trapped in Paris. The denouement is inevitable. I will not reveal any
of it. Sylvia Townsend Warner was certainly a revolutionary for the times she lived in.