Lolly Willowes

For most of her life, Laura Willowes has been “Aunt Lolly,” the unmarried woman passed among relatives who treat her time as their own. Then, in her late forties, she does something unaccountable: she moves alone to a quiet village in the Chilterns, where she discovers she can finally belong to herself, even if that means striking a bargain with the Devil. Sylvia Townsend Warner’s 1926 debut turns a comedy of English family life into a sly parable of a woman claiming her freedom, and its vision of witchcraft as escape rather than menace has kept it alive for readers who prize its wit and quiet rebellion. Read it free in PDF and EPUB.