First published in 1933, Frost in May is Antonia White’s novel of girlhood inside a Catholic convent school, following Nanda Grey as she enters the enclosed world of Lippington. 

Lippington is pretty bloody horrible. It's ritualised, devotional, intimate, punitive and governed by rules whose moral logic = power. The school story trope becomes something colder and more psychologically exacting, following the manufacture of obedience, the erotic and emotional charge of religious discipline, and the manipulation that ensues from teaching those to scrutinise one’s own thoughts.

White is sort of frighteningly good on the way authority becomes internalised way before a child has the language to understand what is happening. It is an immensely accomplished study of belief, shame and self-surveillance, written with an unnervingly controlled clarity. This Virago Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Elizabeth Bowen.

Virago Limited, London, 1980. Third reprint of the 1978 Virago edition. Originally published 1933. Paperback. Light shelf wear and rubbing to covers and edges, with minor age-toning to pages. Internally clean; binding firm. Very good condition.