The Orchid House is a book published in 1953, and the only novel written by Dominican writer Phyllis Shand Allfrey. It is considered "a pioneering work of Caribbean literature".[1] The Orchid House is a fictionalized account of Allfrey's early life, narrated by an old Black nurse Lally from Montserrat. It was turned into a highly acclaimed film for British television.
Originally published by Constable, it was reissued in 1982 by Virago Press, and reprinted in 1991 at the time its Channel 4 television adaptation of the same name came out (directed by Horace Ové with Casting Director John Hubbard[2] and starring Elizabeth Hurley, Madge Sinclair, Diana Quick, Kate Buffery, Lennox Honychurch, British painter and grand-niece of Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Lindy Allfrey[3] and Frances Barber.[4] An American edition of the novel appeared in 1996.
A French-language version, La Maison des Orchidées, appeared in 1954.[5]
Summarized in an Introduction by Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, "The novel, as narrated by the old nurse Lally, revolves around the return of three Creole sisters to their native island after years abroad: Stella, drawn to the lush tropical by an impassioned yearning; Joan, a grass-roots political activist in London; and Natalie, a wealthy old man's hedonistic widow..."[6]
(paperback, Virago Press, 1991 reprint) (New brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992)