Editing Stevie Smith (section)

===''The Holiday'' (Chapman and Hall, 1949)===
Smith's final novel was her own favourite, and is her most fully realised. It is concerned with personal and political malaise in the immediate post-war period. Most of the characters are employed in the army or the civil service in post-war reconstruction, and its heroine, Celia, works for the Ministry as a cryptographer and propagandist. ''The Holiday'' describes a series of hopeless relationships. Celia and her cousin Caz are in love, but cannot pursue their affair since it is believed that, because of their parents' adultery, they are half-brother and half-sister. Celia's other cousin Tom is in love with her, Basil is in love with Tom, Tom is estranged from his father, Celia's beloved Uncle Heber, who pines for a reconciliation;  and Celia's best friend Tiny longs for the married Vera. These unhappy, futureless but intractable relationships are mirrored by the novel's political concerns. The unsustainability of the [[British Empire]] and the uncertainty over Britain's post-war role are constant themes, and many of the characters discuss their personal and political concerns as if they were seamlessly linked. Caz is on leave from [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] and is deeply disillusioned, Tom goes mad during the war, and it is telling that the family scandal that blights Celia and Caz's lives took place in India. Just as Pompey's anti-Semitism is tested in ''Novel on Yellow Paper'', so Celia's traditional nationalism and sentimental support for colonialism are challenged throughout ''The Holiday''.