The Nymph and the Lamp

Eve Challoner Pella is a MPP constituency assistant and a past Executive
Committee member of the PTA in Toronto.

First published in 1950 and rereleased on Raddall’s death in 1994, The
Nymph and the Lamp is the classic story of a love triangle. Set in 1920,
it begins with Carney, a radio operator who has spent the last 10 years
in seclusion on a small island off Nova Scotia’s coast, returning to
the mainland, where he faces the enormous social and technological
changes wrought by World War I. When Isabel Jardine meets Carney, she is
thrust into a journey of self-realization and discovery. Who is her
rightful partner, the Nordic Carney or the sardonic Greg Skane? Or
should she pursue business and consequent spinsterhood? Through the
character of Isabel, Raddall challenges the Victorian notion of the
woman as “lamp” (Dickens’s “Agnes”).

Part fascinating social history, part romance shot through with irony,
Raddall’s novel is well worth reading.