The Pool in the Desert

Lisa M. Rohlmann is a former business owner in Shelburne, Ontario.

Sara Jeanette Duncan (1861–1922) was the first woman to work full-time
for the Toronto Globe—she was in charge of the “Woman’s World”
department—and also one of the first women members of the Ottawa press
gallery. In 1888, she went on a round-the-world tour as a correspondent
for the New York World and the Montreal Star. During this trip, she met
her future husband (in India) and wrote her first novel, A Social
Departure. Many more books and poems were to follow.

Only in recent years have Duncan’s literary works come to be
recognized and appreciated as part of Canada’s great literary
achievements. The Pool in the Desert is a collection of four separate
novels. All are artfully written love stories that are set in colonial
India during the 1900s and feature characters who are either English
officers or civil servants in the imperial-colonial government. Duncan
takes the reader on a tour through the era’s flowery coterie culture,
with its mannerisms, biases, and class distinctions. The Pool in the
Desert is a witty and entertaining work. This new edition provides
valuable background information on the feminist resistance, the
imperial-colonial government, and other aspects of the period Duncan is
writing about.