Tales from the Cloister: Godden, Murdoch and Spark
The retreat from the secular world to a religious order was certainly not unusual prior to the Second World War, particularly for artists, but for these three novelists the impact that Stanbrook in particular had on both their writing and personal lives, however fleeting that initial visit, was decisive. All three, in their different ways, experienced a connection with the transcendent that would remain with them, and which became important to the development of their later work.