Illustrated Book Review: The Stone of Chastity
Margery Sharp's unlikely pulp novel
What must it have been like for Margery Sharp, a twentieth century British author best known for the children’s classic The Rescuers, to write a novel about a folklorist and see it released with covers like this one?
Well, if you write a novel with the word “chastity” in the title, I guess it’s going to get the lurid pulp fiction treatment. This is, of course, only one of many covers: her books were quite popular and new editions were released often. This is the version I happen to own.
The Stone of Chastity, first published in 1940, is the only novel I’ve ever read about a folklorist. (If you’re not exactly sure what one is, and sometimes I think folklorists themselves are still figuring it out, it’s a person who studies traditional ways of doing things. That might include anything from a traditional way of building a barn, to arts and crafts, to myths and legends.)
This folklorist, Professor Isaac Pounce, has heard about a village in the English countryside where a particular stone, set in the middle of a brook, functions as a test of a woman’s virtue. If she slips on the stone while crossing the brook and falls in the water, that means she’s unchaste. Fallen, as it were. She’s either an unmarried woman who’s not a virgin, or she’s a married woman who’s been unfaithful. The professor, sensing a publication opportunity, rents a summer home in the village to investigate what the locals know about this legend and, with any luck, to locate the stone itself.
He begins by typing up a questionnaire asking villagers what they know, if anything, about this bit of local lore. He gives it to his nephew, Nicholas, who has come along to the country for the summer, and asks him to distribute it around the village. Nicholas is rightfully terrified.
“People don’t always care to answer questions,” he tells his uncle, timidly.
“They do. That’s exactly the point brought out by these American polls. People like answering questions.”
“But not about the chastity of their great-grandmothers.”
The role of poor Nicholas in this novel is to make his feeble and fearful protests in the face of a village populated entirely by stronger-willed people. Later, when he confesses his love to a slightly older woman, she says:
“I’m so sorry. It’s not—it isn’t anything to do with you. But I shan’t think of marrying any one for some time.”
“I’ll wait, if it’s of any use,” poor Nicholas offers.
“I don’t think it would be, Nicholas dear. You see, you’re not old enough.”
“I should be older after I’d waited.”
You can probably imagine where the story goes: the Stone of Chastity is located, a public test of the stone is scheduled, and any number of village women show up to take the test, with chaotic results.
It seems like a ridiculously old-fashioned plot, and it is, except that the public has never stopped being fascinated with women’s sexual histories, and Margery Sharp was, of course, poking fun at that fact all the way back in 1940. (In case you’re wondering, Shirley Jackson’s story The Lottery, also about a village full of judgmental people with a weird local tradition, and—well, rocks—was published later, in 1948.)
Many of Margery Sharp’s comic novels for adults have been released in new paperback editions, older editions turn up used pretty often, and you can find some as ebooks too. I’m kind of obsessed with her, as longtime readers of this newsletter might know. Mostly, this was a good excuse to paint pictures of English villages, so thanks for humoring me.
What book do you think deserves an illustrated review?
Probably I’ll just review more weird obscure books nobody’s heard of that were published ages ago, but in the unlikely event that you suggest a book and I actually review it, I’ll send you one of the illustrations. Maybe even more than one! Let me hear from you.
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Some of you have told me that you “can’t even draw a stick figure,” so to begin, we’re going to start with stick figures and end with people dancing. Really! You can do this!
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I have two to suggest, though I don't know how obscure they are... Miss Buncle's Book by D. E. Stevenson, about a woman who writes a book and then all her neighbors in the village realize they are the characters in it... (I might have heard of this one from you come to think of it.). Then there is Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym, about two unmarried sisters in an English village, one of them has always had a thing for the local (married) vicar... not much happens but if you want to paint more English village scenes...
I have a couple of suggestions for illustrated reviews! Mainly because I would love to see your pictures with them. 1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 3. So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger 4. True West by Sam Shepard. There's a weird assortment for ya! :D