Phillip Herring

DB appeared to distance herself from the work later in her life. In her Foreword to a 1972 reprint of the Almanack, DB called the work a slight satiric wigging written in an idle...

Phillip Herring calls Ryderessentially an autobiographical family chronicle in experimental form. In this highly allusive novel, DB imitates and parodies a wide range of literary styles, from Chaucer to nineteenth-century sentimental novels.