Lolly Willowes: or the Loving Huntsman

Lolly Willowes is a satirical novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner, her first, published in 1926. It has been described as an early feminist classic. "Lolly" is the version of Laura's name used by her family after a mispronunciation by a young niece. She comes to dislike being called "Aunt Lolly" and to see the name as a symbol of her lack of independence. "The Loving Huntsman" refers to Satan, whom Laura envisions as hunting souls in a kindly way.

"Lolly's own realization of what she has done strikes with the rapidity and venom of "a snakebite in the brain", just as the novel sharply undercuts its genteel appearance to reveal a dark and visceral heart riddled with gloriously uneasy images (a young woman eats "with the stealthy persistence of a bitch that gives suck").

Lolly Willowes calls for "a life of one's own" three years before Virginia Woolf's impassioned cry for a room. "We have more need of you," she explains to the devil. "Women have such vivid imaginations and lead such dull lives. Their pleasure in life is so soon over; they are so dependent upon others, and their dependence so soon becomes a nuisance." With its clear feminist agenda, Lolly Willowes holds its own among Townsend Warner's historical fiction, but it's also an elegantly enchanting tale that transcends its era." The Guardian