Honeycomb

Dorothy Richardson

Honeycomb is the third installment in Dorothy M. Richardson’s pioneering sequence of semi-autobiographical novels, Pilgrimage. Miriam Henderson, after spending time as a teacher in a German school in the first novel, Pointed Roofs, and in a suburban London school in the second, Backwater, has found a place as governess with a wealthy English family. From her perspective as an outsider she observes the lives of the wealthy women who live in, and visit, the house. At the same time, after her father’s disgrace Miriam’s own family faces challenges and changes—including her sisters’ marriages—leaving Miriam with a closer relationship, and a new understanding, of her mother.