Introduction to Sally

In 1920s England, Sally Pinner is the most dangerous thing a young woman can be: undeniably, inconveniently beautiful. Her father lives in perpetual terror of the men she inadvertently destroys, until an Oxford student appears with honorable intentions and everything seems solved. It is not solved. Enter his mother, her own fiancé, an heiress, a ninety-year-old duke, and every other soul unfortunate enough to cross Sally's path. The comic machinery of errors and misunderstandings that follows is pure Von Arnim at her sharpest: witty, warm, and merciless in skewering the anxieties, pretensions, and absurdities of English society. What makes Sally indelible is her guilelessness. She has no idea what she does to people, which somehow makes it worse. "I can't 'elp it!" she protests, and somehow, impossibly, you believe her. This was Von Arnim's most popular novel in its day, funnier and sharper than The Enchanted April, a romantic comedy that knows exactly how ridiculous love and beauty and the people who succumb to them can be. Perfect for readers who want their satire with a light touch and their romantic entanglements thoroughly farcical.