Author(s): Elizabeth Bowen

Classic Fiction

"To The North" portrays a classic romantic entanglement of a sympathetic, honest, well-meaning young woman who cannot resist becoming involved with a man who is patently caddish and predatory. In striking and richly comic contrast to the turbulence of this passion is the cool, detached atmosphere of the house in St John's Wood in which it takes its course - where the young woman's sister-in-law with her strictly unromantic preoccupations is always near by, the orphaned teenager Pauline presents herself as gawky innocence itself, and the power-loving busybody Lady Waters misses nothing.