But churchmen are not exclusively ogres or figures of fun. Roger, initially timid, develops into one of Winifred's nobler male characters, overcoming his image to Eleanor of 'a comic curate, praying among the buns'.

Love scenes, Winifred freely admitted, were difficult passages for her to write. Her own love life involved one spasmodic and unsatisfactory relationship. She wrote of 'being disappointed if I go through life without once being properly in love. As a writer, I feel it my duty to my work, but they [men] are all so helpless and such children'. Along with so many women of her generation she was affected by the dearth of adequate men after the Great War, which does to some extent account for the rarity of strong male characters in her novels and the frequency of listless survivors, either physically or psychologically crippled. Nevertheless, Roger Mortimer, despite being manipulated by Caroline and besotted with Eleanor, is healthy and shows moral strength as well as progressive views on love and marriage. Equally, Eleanor is independent and direct. Indeed, she represents a new departure in Winifred's attitude towards women's self-determination. The earlier heroines are shackled by domestic ties of one form or another. Mary Robson and Joanna Leigh, farmer's wives, are spirited individuals circumscribed by the restraints of their position in the family and in the community.

Poor Caroline is about the divergent tendencies of philanthropy and exploitation, and the humour, tinged with sadness, arising from their clash in an oddly constituted Company, bringingtogether incompatible people. The Jewish merchant, Isenbaum, and the dilettante, St Basil, scratch each other's backs. Johnson and Macafee are out solely for themselves. Roger and Eleanor have more palatable ulterior motives, but they too use Caroline. Eleanor is no impressionable altruist, but entertains self-professed business ambitions and involves herself in her relative's project for the sake of being associated with an apparently good cause. Even Caroline, the only true believer in her brain-child for the actual spiritual benefits she intends it to bring, is perhaps merely trying to justify herself when society has no real further need of her. Although Vera Brittain accurately described her as 'a self-deceived optimist with an unbalanced devotion to hopeless projects', Caroline is so observed as to be likeable despite her absurdity. Her world of 'uplift, good works and propaganda' was very much her creator's sphere as a fervent believer in education and the benefits of religion. Winifred, however, was no unrealistic idealist like Caroline. Her optimistic canvassing on behalf of the League of Nations or South African Trades Unions was not so earnestly self-important as to be above self-mockery - there could be an element of self-parody in her Caroline, despite Winifred assuring Lady Rhondda: 'Caroline is not a symbol of me, but an expression of herself... I meant to leave the impression of someone silly but vital, directly futile but indirectly triumphant.'

Caroline's demise is not treated tragically, because it leads to the prospect of future benefit. Parallel with this undefeated attitude lies a positive view of progress, both moral and technical. Poor Caroline may not be most memorable as a discussion of the ethics of scientific progress, but the issue is not raised lightly, and admonitions concerning society's future are deliberately made. The Christian Cinema Company falls between two stools not just for lack of a unified commitment, but also, it is suggested, because the twin aims of the Company may be contradictory in practice. In Mandoa, Mandoa! Bill Durrant comes to a conclusion about colonial development in termswhich apply to Caroline's contusion of commerce and morality: 'You can either make a profit out of people or you can lecture them for their own good. But you can't do both with any effect at the same time.' If this is a truism, Poor Caroline's message would be 'to distribute uplift' rather 'than dividends among mankind. It was easier to Do Good than to Make Money.' The personal motives affecting a decision about how best to utilise a technological breakthrough show how the issue has even gained in relevance in the last half century. Johnson's every word deserves suspicious scrutiny, but amidst the regurgitated verbiage we find some valid, if gratuitous, observations, for instance when he chastises Macafee as a lover of science for science's sake: 'Ah, you scientists, who pursue the means an' despise the ends, take care.'

A fine writer's themes and obsessions continually engage important issues with a perspicacity which remains modern and pertinent over and beyond the particular fictional and historical context. Winifred Holtby was a flash of brilliant dynamism, who threw herself with a combined sense of duty and conviction into the burning issues of her day, hoping to help improve society. Her texts and speeches were persuasive in the twenties and thirties and, fortunately, she left an artistic testament which enriches posterity. For despite her dichotomy she was able to combine her dual instincts as writer and reformer without making Caroline's alleged sacrifice of one for the other: 'If I'd had more time I could have been a poet ...