And So Did I

First edition thus. 8vo. Pp. [vi], 148. Black cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Originally published by Jonathan Cape in 1939.

Narrated in a crisp and conversational style, And So Did I is a frank if fragmented account of life just before the outbreak of WWII. The title comes from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at the moment when the eponymous hero recognizes his fate: And a thousand thousand slimy things/ Lived on; and so did I. Vita Sackville-West had compared Malachi Whitaker to Katherine Mansfield, and she had also been called the 'Bradford Chekhov'.

Author retreated into silence following the memoir's publication, perhaps not entirely unconnected to the unparalleled anonymous drubbing the book received in the review pages of The Spectator: "[A] dangerous attempt to make new ground. The result, from a conventional literary point of view, is worthless."

Yet, in the preface to The Journey Home and Other Stories (2017), a re-release of Whitaker's short stories by Persephone Books, author Philip Hensher states: "it is inexplicable how English letters failed to find a place for a writer of such verve, colour, range and power. She is one of the great English short story writers, and her work is slowly reaching some prominence."