Dusty Answer

Dusty Answer is English author Rosamond Lehmann's first novel, published in 1927. She sent it unsolicited to publishers Chatto & Windus who agreed to publish it, saying it showed 'decided quality'. It went unnoticed on initial publication but then received an effusive review by respected critic Alfred Noyes of The Sunday Times who called it 'the sort of novel Keats would have written', which brought it to public attention and it became a bestseller, and according to The Guardian a 'landmark book of the interwar period'. Its success allowed her to leave her then husband and run off with maverick artist Wogan Philipps whom she later married.