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The Gipsy's Baby
Living in a small dwelling at the bottom of the lane, the Wyatts never had cause to associate with the family in the big house—until their cat is attacked by the family's dog. This precipitates an unlikely friendship between the two sets of children; yet the vast gulf between the families is too much for even the youngest to bridge, and the budding relationships end in frustration and ultimately tragedy. "The Gipsy's Baby" is the first in this series of stories in which Rosamond Lehmann explores life in rural England with all its joys, struggles, and heartbreaks. Rosamond Lehmann (1901–1990) is perhaps best known for her novel, The Echoing Grove. She and her husband, artist Wogan Philipps, were at the heart of Bloomsbury society.
197 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
About the author
Rosamond Lehmann
43 books129 followersRosamond Nina Lehmann was born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, as the second daughter of Rudolph Lehmann and his wife Alice Davis, a New Englander. Her father Rudolph Chambers Lehmann was a liberal MP, and editor of the Daily News. John Lehmann (1907-1989) was her brother; one of her two sisters was the famous actress Beatrix Lehmann.
In 1919 she went to Girton College, University of Cambridge to read English Literature, an unusual thing for a woman to do at that time. In December 1923 she married Leslie Runciman (later 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford) (1900-1989), and the couple went to live in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was an unhappy marriage, and they separated in 1927 and were divorced later that year.
In 1927, Lehmann published her first novel, Dusty Answer, to great critical and popular acclaim. The novel's heroine, Judith, is attracted to both men and women, and interacts with fairly openly gay and lesbian characters during her years at Cambridge. The novel was a succès de scandale. Though none of her later novels were as successful as her first, Lehmann went on to publish six more novels, a play (No More Music, 1939), a collection of short stories (The Gypsy's Baby & Other Stories, 1946), a spiritual autobiography (The Swan in the Evening, 1967), and a photographic memoir of her friends (Rosamond Lehmann's Album, 1985), many of whom were famous Bloomsbury figures such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Carrington, and Lytton Strachey. She also translated two French novels into English: Jacques Lemarchand's Genevieve (1948) and Jean Cocteau's Children of the Game (1955). Her novels include A Note in Music (1930), Invitation to the Waltz (1932), The Weather in the Streets (1936), The Ballad and the Source (1944), The Echoing Grove (1953), and A Sea-Grape Tree (1976).
In 1928, Lehmann married Wogan Philipps, an artist. They had two children, a son Hugo (1929-1999) and a daughter Sarah or Sally (1934-1958), but the marriage quickly fell apart during the late Thirties with her Communist husband leaving to take part in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II she helped edit and contributed to New Writing, a periodical edited by her brother. She had an affair with Goronwy Rees and then a "very public affair" for nine years (1941-1950) with the married Cecil Day-Lewis, who eventually left her for his second wife.
Her 1953 novel The Echoing Grove was made into the 2002 film Heart of Me, with Helena Bonham Carter as the main character, Dinah. Her book The Ballad and the Source depicts an unhappy marriage from the point of view of a child, and has been compared to Henry James' What Maisie Knew.
The Swan in the Evening (1967) is an autobiography which Lehmann described as her "last testament". In it, she intimately describes the emotions she felt at the birth of her daughter Sally, and also when Sally died abruptly of poliomyelitis at the age of 23 (or 24) in 1958 while in Jakarta. She never recovered from Sally's death. Lehmann claimed to have had some psychic experiences, documented in Moments of Truth.
Lehmann was awarded the CBE in 1982 and died at Clareville Grove, London on 12 March 1990, aged 89.
In 1919 she went to Girton College, University of Cambridge to read English Literature, an unusual thing for a woman to do at that time. In December 1923 she married Leslie Runciman (later 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford) (1900-1989), and the couple went to live in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was an unhappy marriage, and they separated in 1927 and were divorced later that year.
In 1927, Lehmann published her first novel, Dusty Answer, to great critical and popular acclaim. The novel's heroine, Judith, is attracted to both men and women, and interacts with fairly openly gay and lesbian characters during her years at Cambridge. The novel was a succès de scandale. Though none of her later novels were as successful as her first, Lehmann went on to publish six more novels, a play (No More Music, 1939), a collection of short stories (The Gypsy's Baby & Other Stories, 1946), a spiritual autobiography (The Swan in the Evening, 1967), and a photographic memoir of her friends (Rosamond Lehmann's Album, 1985), many of whom were famous Bloomsbury figures such as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Carrington, and Lytton Strachey. She also translated two French novels into English: Jacques Lemarchand's Genevieve (1948) and Jean Cocteau's Children of the Game (1955). Her novels include A Note in Music (1930), Invitation to the Waltz (1932), The Weather in the Streets (1936), The Ballad and the Source (1944), The Echoing Grove (1953), and A Sea-Grape Tree (1976).
In 1928, Lehmann married Wogan Philipps, an artist. They had two children, a son Hugo (1929-1999) and a daughter Sarah or Sally (1934-1958), but the marriage quickly fell apart during the late Thirties with her Communist husband leaving to take part in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II she helped edit and contributed to New Writing, a periodical edited by her brother. She had an affair with Goronwy Rees and then a "very public affair" for nine years (1941-1950) with the married Cecil Day-Lewis, who eventually left her for his second wife.
Her 1953 novel The Echoing Grove was made into the 2002 film Heart of Me, with Helena Bonham Carter as the main character, Dinah. Her book The Ballad and the Source depicts an unhappy marriage from the point of view of a child, and has been compared to Henry James' What Maisie Knew.
The Swan in the Evening (1967) is an autobiography which Lehmann described as her "last testament". In it, she intimately describes the emotions she felt at the birth of her daughter Sally, and also when Sally died abruptly of poliomyelitis at the age of 23 (or 24) in 1958 while in Jakarta. She never recovered from Sally's death. Lehmann claimed to have had some psychic experiences, documented in Moments of Truth.
Lehmann was awarded the CBE in 1982 and died at Clareville Grove, London on 12 March 1990, aged 89.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 26, 2012
As it is the Rosamond Lehmann reading week, and as I have loved reading her work so much in the past (I’ve yet to read everything she wrote) I decided to take a short break in my month of re-reading when I found this in Waterstones just waiting for me. I popped in (never usually going to full price book shops) just to see if they had a copy of one of the Rosamond Lehmann books I hadn’t read – they had, this one – I decided it was meant to be.
This short collection of stories Rosamond Lehmann wrote during the Second World War. They concern primarily the minutiae of everyday rural life. These stories do seem to offer the reader a different view of the world than Rosamond Lehmann’s novels which are more concerned with romantic love and the women who are hurt or betrayed by it. The war looms large particularly in the last of these stories, the families are socially speaking like those of the novels I have read – yet their worlds have been shrunk by the war. A lost trunk could prove disastrous- there is no chance of just replacing everything during such times.
The title story – and “The red-haired Miss Daintreys” are narrated by Rebecca, the memorable narrator of Rosamond Lehmann’s brilliant complex novel “The Ballad and the source” which I read about a year ago. In “The Gipsy’s Baby” Rebecca and her sisters strike up a fragile, unlikely friendship with the Wyatt children, who live in a tiny cottage at the end of the lane. The social gulf however is just too hard to bridge and when the gypsies arrive the scene is set for tragedy.
“In October, the gipsies came back. They came twice a year, in spring and autumn, streaming through the village in ragged procession, with two yellow and red caravans; men in cloth caps, with handkerchiefs knotted round their throats, women in black with cross over shawls and voluminous skirts, some scarecrow children, and several thin-ribbed dogs of the whippet race running on leads tied, much to Jess’s disquiet, under the shafts of the caravans.”
In “The red-headed Miss Daintreys” Rebecca and her family meet the four Daintrey daughters and their parents while on holiday on the Isle of Wight. The relationship with the family continues for some years – seeing the eldest Miss Daintrey the subject of an unlikely romance.
The next three stories: “When the waters came”, “A dream of winter” and “Wonderful holidays “are each about Mrs Ritchie and her children Jane and John. A bee man arrives during winter to take the swarm living in the walls of the house; there are village amateur dramatics during school holidays, while a WW1 veteran misses his absent wife.
“I wrote to her yesterday and told her she better come back. I don’t like the idea of her being up in town. Those last raids were child’s play to what’s coming, so I hear. They might start any moment. I can’t have her exposing herself to them. Besides’ his voice went up his nose, weak with self-pity – ‘I can’t see to everything myself day in day out like this. There’s all the potatoes to go in. It means too much stooping for me”
I loved these wonderful stories – they are quite different to the novels of Rosamond Lehmann that I have read – but they are beautifully written, the characterisation just as well developed.
This short collection of stories Rosamond Lehmann wrote during the Second World War. They concern primarily the minutiae of everyday rural life. These stories do seem to offer the reader a different view of the world than Rosamond Lehmann’s novels which are more concerned with romantic love and the women who are hurt or betrayed by it. The war looms large particularly in the last of these stories, the families are socially speaking like those of the novels I have read – yet their worlds have been shrunk by the war. A lost trunk could prove disastrous- there is no chance of just replacing everything during such times.
The title story – and “The red-haired Miss Daintreys” are narrated by Rebecca, the memorable narrator of Rosamond Lehmann’s brilliant complex novel “The Ballad and the source” which I read about a year ago. In “The Gipsy’s Baby” Rebecca and her sisters strike up a fragile, unlikely friendship with the Wyatt children, who live in a tiny cottage at the end of the lane. The social gulf however is just too hard to bridge and when the gypsies arrive the scene is set for tragedy.
“In October, the gipsies came back. They came twice a year, in spring and autumn, streaming through the village in ragged procession, with two yellow and red caravans; men in cloth caps, with handkerchiefs knotted round their throats, women in black with cross over shawls and voluminous skirts, some scarecrow children, and several thin-ribbed dogs of the whippet race running on leads tied, much to Jess’s disquiet, under the shafts of the caravans.”
In “The red-headed Miss Daintreys” Rebecca and her family meet the four Daintrey daughters and their parents while on holiday on the Isle of Wight. The relationship with the family continues for some years – seeing the eldest Miss Daintrey the subject of an unlikely romance.
The next three stories: “When the waters came”, “A dream of winter” and “Wonderful holidays “are each about Mrs Ritchie and her children Jane and John. A bee man arrives during winter to take the swarm living in the walls of the house; there are village amateur dramatics during school holidays, while a WW1 veteran misses his absent wife.
“I wrote to her yesterday and told her she better come back. I don’t like the idea of her being up in town. Those last raids were child’s play to what’s coming, so I hear. They might start any moment. I can’t have her exposing herself to them. Besides’ his voice went up his nose, weak with self-pity – ‘I can’t see to everything myself day in day out like this. There’s all the potatoes to go in. It means too much stooping for me”
I loved these wonderful stories – they are quite different to the novels of Rosamond Lehmann that I have read – but they are beautifully written, the characterisation just as well developed.
June 16, 2010
Lehmann's gift for portraying children is much in evidence in The Gipsy's Baby, a collection of short stories she wrote during World War II. The first two, "The Gipsy's Baby" and "The Red-Haired Miss Daintreys", use Rebecca of The Ballad and the Source as narrator, telling of two different families whose lives intersect with Rebecca and her family, while the three that follow are about Mrs. Ritchie and her children, John and Jane. I especially liked "The Red-Haired Miss Daintreys" and its portrayal of the eldest Miss Daintrey, Mildred, first "the picture of a horror-governess" but then the unexpected object of romance.
July 21, 2021
She checked her step sharply, and said aloud, “Really, you’re revolting.” Still this sickening self-indulgent daydreaming, this perpetual wash of emotional flotsam, blocking the channels of the clear flow of reason. No ideas, no intellectual progress, none. No wonder, perhaps, that Charles her husband had left her years ago, transferring his suitcases, his typewriter, his notes for a book on Marxian aesthetics and his affections to a clear-browed female research student in physics.
Does it get any better than that? The long story “Wonderful Holidays” is one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. I can’t wait to read more Lehmann; I just wish she were easier to find in the libraries!
Does it get any better than that? The long story “Wonderful Holidays” is one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. I can’t wait to read more Lehmann; I just wish she were easier to find in the libraries!
December 29, 2021
Beautifully written with well observed detail and chracters. Transported into a different era.
May 22, 2024
not so much. when she's great, she's great, but this isn't it.
December 4, 2011
I like how Rosamond Lehmann's stories are about nothing at all, but very significant nothings at all. The one I remember is the one where they take bees out of the roof and the honey is no good. I also liked the one about the red-headed family of daughters, especially the bit in the beginning where she says she prefers it when authors are intractable and, when asked about what their stories are about, say bullishly: "Just some people" -- or are otherwise vague and refuse to be drawn on themes etc.
Read
December 9, 2015The stories were familiar from having read her other work. It's as if her words glide along the page and are effortlessly written. The book i had was rebound so some of the words were in the binding and i had to stretch the book out to read it. There is always a disturbing element in her stories--people so often die of the simplest things that we take for granted can be fixed these days. But the real disturbance is the huge gap between the haves and the have nots, which thankfully was changed by WWI somewhat.
April 6, 2019
I do consider Rosamond Lehmann to be one of Britain's most talented writers of the 20th century. She is often rather shocking in theme, but there is always a humour with it. She conveys the subtle interplay between people so well. These short stories are not the author at her best. To some extent, they are light floss, and published during the war as many were, they were meant to be entertaining. My favourite memory from the book is that of the cat-killing Dandie Dinmont Terrier. This stretches one's imagination to the very limits. Where can I get one?
December 16, 2023
I read from the 1946 edition - it consisted of 5 stories including the Gipsy's Baby.
I liked the story, The Gipsy's Baby, although But the last story was over 80 pages long and it was really boring (at least to me). It went nowhere...for over 80 pages.
Stories were set in the time frame of either circa World War One or World War Two.
The stories and my ratings of them:
• The Gipsy’s Baby — 4 stars
• The Red-Headed Miss Daintreys — 3 stars
• When the Waters Came —3 stars
• A Dream of Winter — 2 stars
• Wonderful Holidays — 1.5 stars
Book is available for free at the Open Library: https://openlibrary.org/account/loans
It appears that the last 4 stories were semi-autobiographical , and she really did not want to write them, but she did it as a favor to her brother, John, who was publishing a magazine, ‘New Writing’ and wanted her to contribute stories to it.
Reviews (although I thought it was overall OK these reviewers very much liked the collection...I guess these were the only short stories Lehmann ever wrote):
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/....
• An article in a journal — Contemporary British Studies (Vol. 61. 2021; Issue Title: Invisible Lives, Silent Voices) —about the eponymous story of the short story collection: https://journals.openedition.org/ebc/...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
I liked the story, The Gipsy's Baby, although But the last story was over 80 pages long and it was really boring (at least to me). It went nowhere...for over 80 pages.
Stories were set in the time frame of either circa World War One or World War Two.
The stories and my ratings of them:
• The Gipsy’s Baby — 4 stars
• The Red-Headed Miss Daintreys — 3 stars
• When the Waters Came —3 stars
• A Dream of Winter — 2 stars
• Wonderful Holidays — 1.5 stars
Book is available for free at the Open Library: https://openlibrary.org/account/loans
It appears that the last 4 stories were semi-autobiographical , and she really did not want to write them, but she did it as a favor to her brother, John, who was publishing a magazine, ‘New Writing’ and wanted her to contribute stories to it.
Reviews (although I thought it was overall OK these reviewers very much liked the collection...I guess these were the only short stories Lehmann ever wrote):
• https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/....
• An article in a journal — Contemporary British Studies (Vol. 61. 2021; Issue Title: Invisible Lives, Silent Voices) —about the eponymous story of the short story collection: https://journals.openedition.org/ebc/...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews