Dorothy Whipple was once a highly regarded bestselling novelist and it is typical of the excellent Persephone books that they have restored her glory within their elegant silver jackets and distinctive floral end papers.

In They Were Sisters, with its, surely intentional, Chekhovian undertones, Whipple explores the fortunes of three sisters: Lucy, Charlotte and Vera. Lucy is clever and studious but must abandon her intellectual aspirations when their mother dies and, in the custom of the times (the novel is set in Thirties Britain), Lucy, as the eldest, becomes duty-bound to raise her siblings. Charlotte is sensitive but wilful and, dis- regarding all the signals, marries an out-and-out rotter, while Vera, an egocentric beauty, marries a mother’s boy and a bore. The only one of the three who remains childless, Lucy finally makes a sound marriage to William, who loves and respects her as an equal. With nothing more troubling than companionable contentment to engage her, Lucy’s creative energies continue to focus on her sisters and their marriages, which are made a long way from heaven.

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