The Winter Swan

In 1949, Sam Youd – who would later go on, as John Christopher, to write The Death of Grass and The Tripods – published his first novel. As he later said:

I knew first novels tended to be autobiographical and was determined to avoid that. So my main character was a woman, from a social milieu I only knew from books, and … [with] a story that progressed from grave to girlhood.

When Rosemary Hallam dies, what she longs for is the peace of non-existence. Instead, her disembodied spirit must trav...