Interim

Interim is the fifth installment in Dorothy M. Richardson’s pioneering sequence of semi-autobiographical novels, Pilgrimage.

After years of false starts and tragedy, Miriam Henderson, the series’s protagonist, experiences a measure of stability for the first time in her adult life working as a dental assistant and living on her own in a London boarding house. As she navigates the social complexities of independent living, she allows herself to become more engaged with the family of her landlady, more a part of the boarding house community—especially a group of Canadian doctors—and more of a Londoner.

Interim was originally serialized in The Little Review, alongside installments of Ulysses. It’s a story in which nothing “happens”—Richardson dismissed all plots as “lollipops for children”—but which paints a vivid and intimate portrait of a young writer’s mind, and brings to life the world that shaped her.

This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.