''Frost in May'' is a 1933 novel by the British author

Antonia White Antonia White (born Eirene Adeline Botting; 31 March 1899 – 10 April 1980) was a British writer and translator, known primarily for ''Frost in May'', a semi-autobiographical novel set in a convent school. It was the first book reissued by Virag ...

that was reissued in 1978 as the first book in

Virago Press Virago is a British publisher of women's writing and books on feminist topics. Started and run by women in the 1970s and bolstered by the success of the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), Virago has been credited as one of several British femini ...

's Modern Classics series of books by neglected women authors.

Background

''Frost in May'', first published in 1933 with an introduction by

Elizabeth Bowen Elizabeth Bowen CBE (; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Irish-British novelist and short story writer notable for her books about the "big house" of Irish landed Protestants as well her fiction about life in wartime London. Life ...

(and publicly praised by

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...

), was based on White's years at a

convent school Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syste ...

in pre-World-War-I England. That was not an entirely happy time for White, and her mixed experiences are reflected in the novel. White began a version of ''Frost in May'' while at the convent, but it was discovered and confiscated and led to White's expulsion from the school — an episode that reappears fictionalized in the novel. It was reissued by Virago Press in 1978 as the first in its Modern Classics series of new editions of out-of-print books by neglected women authors. It was also adapted as a 1982 BBC television mini-series.

Plot summary

The novel opens as its 9-year-old protagonist, Fernanda 'Nanda' Grey, is on her way to the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

Convent of the Five Wounds outside London, where she will live and get her schooling until she is forced out at the age of 13. Although her mother dislikes the school's hermetic culture, Nanda is initially more influenced by her father, a recent convert to Catholicism. Told solely from Nanda's point of view, the novel unspools in part through Nanda's inner reflections as she attempts to come to terms with the requirements of daily life at the convent. During the course of the story, Nanda begins to write her first novel. When the nuns eventually discover this manuscript they are horrified by it, and ''Frost in May'' ends with Nanda leaving the convent. In ''Frost in May'', White explores the attractions of a romanticized Catholicism for a young girl while condemning the school's absolutist and punitive culture. At the convent school, everything the girls do is heavily controlled, from their censored letters home to the way they are expected to fold their clothes. A major theme of the novel is the many ways in which patriarchal authority is exercised: by Nanda's father, by the convent's priest, and by the nuns themselves. Through specific episodes of Nanda's life, White explores the "petty cruelty, and ... the institutionalised power of symbols and community pressure." Much of the tension in this coming-of-age story stems from Fernanda's increasing discontent as she grows away from the values, beliefs, and practices of the convent school world.

References

1933 British novels British bildungsromans {{1930s-bildungsroman-stub