The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy was first published in 1924 and it’s split up into four sections, the first one being Sanger’s Circus. Albert Sanger is a composer who was born in London but is hardly known in his own country. He and his large family live in the Austrian Tyrol in a chalet, along with some hangers-on, it’s a very Bohemian way of life with the children unkempt and dressed almost in rags, they’ve never even been to school. Their mother died and Albert has a mistress living with them, there’s a long line of women in Albert’s past, but time is catching up with him and he’s now ill.

When the inevitable happens and the children are left on their own it’s a barely known uncle in London who comes to the rescue with offers of help, and he sends his adult daughter Florence to them to arrange matters, which includes sending them all to school. Of course this doesn’t go down well with the children.

I really didn’t much enjoy the first part of this book and it was only the fact that I know it’s well regarded by others that kept me from abandoning it, I’m really glad that I didn’t because as I read on I got more and more involved in the story. I have to say though that I did find the Lewis/Tessa strand in the book to be a bit icky, especially towards the end. Tessa (the constant nymph) is a 14 year old girl who has had a crush on Lewis for years, but Lewis is more than twice her age. That doesn’t stop others (who should know better) from thinking it would be a good match though, despite Lewis being a bit of a bad hat (rogue) Very strange as particularly in 1924 when this book was published a 14 year old would very definitely have been seen as being a little girl.

My copy of the book was published by Heinemann in 1934, but it was reprinted by Virago more recently.