And So Did I

Whitaker recalls that although she wrote many short stories in the early part of the century, she was savagely self-critical and allowed few of them to be published. The Crystal Fountain, a collection of her stories, appeared in 1985. In this diary, the title drawn from Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, a woman of unflinching integrity and gritty compassion is revealed. Largely self-educated, one of 11 children of a bookbinder, she describes her love affair with words. In her reflections and homely vignettes, we are given a picture of the life of an English country woman in the '30s. Whitaker ruminates on her companionate marriage, her two adopted children and her ingrained thriftiness. Hers is a voice of conviction speaking with wry humor and unsentimentality. (January 30)