Writing
Kaye-Smith's fiction was noted for being rooted in rural concerns: the nineteenth century agricultural depression, farming, legacies, land rents, strikes, the changing position of women, the effects of industrialisation on the countryside and provincial life. Admirers of her work included her close friend G. B. Stern (with whom she collaborated on two books about Jane Austen), Thomas Hardy, and Noël Coward.
Kaye-Smith's novels straddle more than one genre of fiction. Her earliest novels partly fit into the 'earthy' rural category, together with that of Mary E Mann, Mary Webb, D. H. Lawrence, and Thomas Hardy, a genre which inspired Stella Gibbons's parody "Cold Comfort Farm". Kaye-Smith's descriptions of the Sussex countryside, coast and marsh are still regarded as some of the finest. Several of her heroines become single parents and most face various gender-related trials, reflecting her early feminism as well as influences such as George Moore and Thomas Hardy. Kaye-Smith also produced many short stories, and journalism published in national journals, magazines and newspapers.
Arguably Kaye-Smith's most famous novel, Joanna Godden was based in Romney Marsh and filmed in 1947 as The Loves of Joanna Godden starring Googie Withers and with a score by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The screenplay by H. E. Bates has a very different conclusion to the story.
Her later books increasingly reflected her own religious preoccupations, featuring characters tussling with spiritual crises and conversions within subtle discussions of the differences between Anglicanism, Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless her plots reflect the pre- and post- WW2 preoccupations of women's 'middle-brow' fiction of the time, including national anxieties about social class, divorce, and women's 'role', within a mainly rural but rapidly modernising milieu. They therefore share similarities with contemporary writers such as Barbara Pym, Marghanhita Laski and H E Bates. Her descriptions of farming practices and economics, and village vernacular are particularly detailed and accurate for this genre.
Joanna Godden and Susan Spray were reissued in the 1980s by feminist publishing house Virago. Her books are out of print, but easily available on the used book market.
Read more about this topic: Sheila Kaye-Smith
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