A Modern, Ancient, Eternal Tale

Readers of this journal should herald the new Catholic Women Writers series begun by scholars Bonnie Lander Johnson and Julia Meszaros at Catholic University of America Press. Full disclosure: they asked me a few years ago if I would be willing to serve on the advisory board for this new series of reprints of works by women of the Catholic Literary Revival who have not been remembered as well as Flannery O’Connor, Muriel Spark, or Dorothy Day. The somewhat forgotten authors to be reprinted would include, among others, Maisie Ward, Alice Meynell, Rumer Godden, Caroline Gordon, Sheila Kaye-Smith, and Marie Belloc-Lowndes. Gilbert readers will know that many of these and others have very direct ties to Chesterton. Meynell was Chesterton’s friend, Ward a friend and biographer of GKC, and Belloc-Lowndes was Hilaire’s sister.