The War-Workers & Consequences brings together two searching early novels in which E. M. Delafield examines women's lives under the pressures of duty, class, and institutional expectation. The War-Workers is a sharply observed home-front satire of voluntary wartime administration, exposing vanity, fatigue, and moral self-deception beneath patriotic efficiency. Consequences is darker and more psychological, tracing the constriction of a young woman shaped by family discipline, convent schooling, and social convention. Together they belong to the post-Edwardian moment when realist fiction began scrutinizing the costs of feminine obedience. Delafield, born Edmée Elizabeth Monica de la Pasture in 1890, knew the worlds she described: upper-middle-class domesticity, Catholic education, wartime service, and the often absurd machinery of respectable philanthropy. Before becoming famous for The Diary of a Provincial Lady, she had already developed a distinctive comic intelligence, balancing irony with compassion. Her fiction repeatedly asks how women survive systems that praise sacrifice while denying self-knowledge. This volume is recommended to readers interested in women's writing, First World War home-front literature, and the evolution of modern social satire. It reveals Delafield as more than a comic diarist: she is a penetrating analyst of emotional repression and institutional power. This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience. - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era-social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand-picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.

This carefully crafted ebook: "The War-Workers & Consequences (Two Unabridged Novels)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
"The War-Workers" (1918) - The travails of working in a Supply Depot under the tyrannical control of Charmain Vivian, who meets her match in a newly arrived clergyman's daughter Grace Jones.
"Consequences" (1919) - A young woman entering a convent. Its heroine, Alex Clare, refuses to marry the only young man to make her an offer of marriage, and, finding herself regarded as a failure by society, must resort to convent life.
E. M. Delafield (1890-1943) was a prolific English author who is best known for her largely autobiographical works like Zella Sees Herself, The Provincial Lady Series etc. which look at the lives of upper-middle class Englishwomen.

Plessing was also speaking of Miss Vivian that evening.

"Where is this to end, Miss Bruce? I ask you, where is it to end?" demanded Miss Vivian's mother.

Miss Bruce knew quite well that Lady Vivian was not asking her at all, in the sense of expecting to receive from her any suggestion of a term to that which in fact appeared to be interminable, so she only made a clicking sound of sympathy with her tongue and went on rapidly stamping postcards.

"I am not unpatriotic, though I do dislike Flagdays, and I was the first person to say that Char must go and do work somewhere-nurse in a hospital if she liked, or do censor's work at the War Office. Sir Piers said 'No' at first-you know he's old-fashioned in many ways-and then he said Char wasn't strong enough, and to a certain extent I agreed with him. But I put aside all that and absolutely encouraged her, as you know, to organize this Supply Depôt. But I must say, Miss Bruce, that I never expected the thing to grow to these dimensions. Of course, it may be a very splendid work-in fact, I'm sure it is, and every one says how proud I must be of such a wonderful daughter but is it all absolutely necessary?"

"Oh, Lady Vivian," said the secretary reproachfully. "Why, the very War Office itself knows the value of dear Charmian's work. They are always asking her to take on fresh branches."

"That's just what I am complaining of. Why should the Midland Supply Depôt do all these odd jobs? Hospital supplies are all very well, but when it comes to meeting all the troop-trains and supplying all the bandages, and being central Depôt for sphagnum moss, and all the rest of it-all I can say is, that it's beyond a joke."

Miss Bruce took instant advantage of her employer's infelicitous final cliché to remark austerely:

"Certainly one would never dream of looking upon it as a joke, Lady Vivian. I quite feel with you about the working so fearfully hard, and keeping these strange, irregular hours, but I'm convinced that it's perfectly unavoidable-perfectly unavoidable. Charmian owns herself that no one can possibly take her place at the Depôt, even for a day."

This striking testimony to the irreplacableness of her daughter appeared to leave Lady Vivian cold.

"I dare say," she said curtly. "Of course, she's got a gift for organization, and all she's done is perfectly marvellous, but I must say I wish she'd taken up nursing or something reasonable, like anybody else, when she could have had proper holidays and kept regular hours."

Miss Bruce gave the secretarial equivalent for laughing the suggestion to scorn.

"As though nursing wasn't something that anyone could do! Why, any ordinary girl can work in a hospital. But I should like to know what other woman could do Charmian's work. Why, if she left, the whole organization would break down in a week."

"Well," said the goaded Lady Vivian, "the war wouldn't go on any the longer if it did, I don't suppose-any more than it's going to end twenty-four hours …