She is of interest to me mainly because of
her book An Enemy at Green Knowe. The
enemy in the title is the scholar, black magician and demon-possessed witch Dr.
Melanie Powers, who has been mentioned in passing in a few articles. This is
the only book in which Lucy M. Boston writes at length about the battle between good and
evil.
There is little in Lucy M. Boston’s life to
explain where Melanie Powers and her very familiar characteristics and
behaviour came from; unlike Nicholas Stuart Gray’s and Diana Wynne Jones’s witches,
she was not based on the author’s mother: Lucy M. Boston’s mother was unhappy
and neglectful, but not cruel and evil.
However, the magical house Green Knowe, whose
name appears in the titles of her series of children’s fantasy books, is taken directly
from Manor House, which was built by the Normans around the year 1130 and was
her home for almost 50 years.
Manor House is still in the Boston family and
is now open to the public. Maybe I will go to see it some time.
