ABSTRACT
Rosamond Lehmann, who had already been in the forefront of 'the public version' when supporting the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, was less inclined to exhibit the 'stoic good humour' of Piette's 'public stories'. The openness of the text to multiple interpretations challenges its absence from mainstream literary history. Lehmann told Janet Watts when working together on the introduction to the Virago edition of the novel that The Ballad and the Source had been 'born at a peaceful time in her own life, although her country was in the midst of war'. Academic consideration of the literature of the Second World War is a comparatively new field: each author of several recently published studies makes some claim toward her or his book's being an exploration of neglected territory. A covering note from Lehmann attached to the latter manuscript offers insight into her working methods: This is all that survives of the original manuscript of novel The Echoing Grove.
