The first novel in what was to become known as “The Helena Trilogy” was not planned by the author, Pamela Hansford Johnson, as the first in a series. If it had been, the sequence might have been labelled the “Pickering Quartet”, since Claud Pickering is the first person narrator of the three novels under discussion –
Too Dear for My Possessing(1940),
An Avenue of Stone(1947) and
A Summer to Decide(1948) – and he and members of his family also appear in relatively minor roles in Johnson’s
Winter Quarters(1944).
In the latter novel, however, the interlinked stories of army personnel, their families and the residents of the English village in which the troops are temporarily stationed, are related by an omniscient voice. The Spectator reviewer judged the novel to be“both
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Citation: Pollard, Wendy. "The "Helena Trilogy": Too Dear for My Possessing, An Avenue of Stone and A Summer to Decide". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 May 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35634, accessed 26 November 2024.]
