Somewhere in Christendom.

Bookseller Notes

A novel written during the Great War, conveying the author's pacifist beliefs; Sharp had been editor of the suffrage journal 'Votes for Women' during the conflict - in the same cause, she had earlier been twice imprisoned, and continued to court the ire of the authorities with a refusal to pay taxes. This utopian work a product of that resolute turmoil, but also a testament to the shifting tide.Some of Sharp's earliest work appeared in the 'Yellow Book', and writing for children was a staple of her career, but the present work is an ambitious novel, labelled a 'Revolutionary Fantasia' by its author, who had partly been moved to write in that mode by events in Russia - she pronounced herself 'thrilled at the news of the Russian revolution' ('Unfinished Adventure', p. 231), and the first chapter of this work documents 'The Revolution', though she could not endorse Communist ideology where it did not align with her pacifism. More on the basis of its author's confidence in her vision than the public reception of her novel (in fact, the author wrote to Stanley Unwin to apologise for its 'complete failure'), Sharp dramatised the work as 'But Why Not?'. She depicts 'the war-ravaged nation of Ethuria where the nation is inspired by a female prophet, who puts childbirth and the family at the centre of a revolutionary nation in which there are no armed forces or clergy and vegetarianism is the norm' (Adams, 'Decadent Women', p. 322).