The Operation: 'It came again, without fail it came again''

By Violet Hunt

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham. As a young child her family moved to London and Hunt was brought up amongst the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists.

As a writer she was comfortable and talented enough to write across several forms including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. Her novels are excellent examples of New Woman fiction and help illustrate her activities fighting for and promoting better rights for women.

Although she remained unmarried she had lovers as notable as Somerset Maugham, H G Wells and Ford Maddox Ford, the latter whom she lived with for a number of years.

Her collections of supernatural short stories contain much of her best work and despite her considerable talents and literary output her reputation rests both on the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill, where the very best of literary society attended, and for her founding of the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and her participation in the founding of International PEN in 1921.

Violet Hunt died of pneumonia at her home in Campden Hill on 16th January 1942. She was 79 and is buried at Brookwood Cemetery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Jan 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803547657

Book preview

The Operation by Violet Hunt

The Author, An Introduction

Isobel Violet Hunt was born on 28th September 1862 in Durham. As a young child her family moved to London and Hunt was brought up amongst the Pre-Raphaelite circle of artists. 

As a writer she was comfortable and talented enough to write across several forms including short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. Her novels are excellent examples of New Woman fiction and help illustrate her activities fighting for and promoting better rights for women.

Although she remained unmarried she had lovers as notable as Somerset Maugham, H G Wells and Ford Maddox Ford, the latter whom she lived with for a number of years.

Her collections of supernatural short stories contain much of her best work and despite her considerable talents and literary output her reputation rests both on the literary salons she held at her home in Campden Hill, where the very best of literary society attended, and for her founding of the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and her participation in the founding of International PEN in 1921.

Violet Hunt died of pneumonia at her home in Campden Hill on 16th January 1942. She was 79 and is buried at Brookwood Cemetery.

The Operation

Yes, I think that might hang a day longer. I can finish up the mince for my lunch, and you must do something with the turkey legs for dinner. Let me see—and there’s fish today. And then—well, suppose you make a savoury?’

‘Master don't care for savouries, Ma'am!’

‘A sweet, then, I don’t care. And that’s all, I think?’

Mrs Joe Mardell, in her neat morning shirt, coquettishly finished with a man-like tie, and the severity of her attire much modified by the bows and loops of waved hair that crowned her head, turned and was about to leave the dark basement of the little house in Kirriemuir Street, West Kensington, when a door in the upper regions banged.

‘There, he’s off, and I wanted a cheque!" Mrs Mardell observed with mild irritation. She glanced at the kitchen clock with a degree of confidence she did not place in the elegant time-keeper, cased in jewels, that hung on the front of her shirt. ‘Why, it’s only half-past ten?’

‘Master’s early gone this morning,’ said the cook. ‘Gladys took his breakfast up only ten minutes ago.’ She paused, then summoning her courage, she asked:

‘Ma'am, are people usually buried on Christmas Day?’

‘Why, you silly woman, it depends on what day they die. Who's been dying?’

‘I’ll swear,’ said the woman, eagerly, ‘that I saw a corpse being carried down the steps of number thirteen just over the street opposite nearly a week ago, and I reckon it back Christmas Day!... It’s been worrying me ever since. Yes, l saw the mourners and hearse and feathers and all—done quite proper. I was looking out of the front staircase window—'

‘Neglecting your work, Vance? Serves you right. You saw Whiteley’s sale cart, perhaps? You were looking sideways through the red panes, and glass, you know, refracts oddly. ... Who lives at number thirteen?’

‘Oddly enough, Ma'am, I don’t