Title: The White Witch of Rose Hall
Author: Herbert G. deLisser
Publisher: MacmillanCaribbean
Reviewer: Barbara Nelson

Herbert George DeLisser, author of The White Witch of Rose Hall was born in Falmouth, Jamaica, in December 1878 and lived until May 1944. He was chief editor of The Gleaner newspaper for some 40 years from 1904 and was appointed to the CMG (a British honour for individuals who have rendered important services in relation to the Commonwealth) for his literary work. DeLisser is considered to be the first important novelist of the English-speaking Caribbean.

In West Indian Narrative: An Introductory Anthology edited by Kenneth Ramchand, publications by DeLisser are listed as Jane's Career: A Story of Jamaica (1914), Susan Proudleigh (1915), Triumphant Squalitone (1917), Revenge (1919), The White Witch of Rosehall (1929; 1960) Under the Sun (1937), Psyche (1952), Morgan's Daughter (1953), The Cup and the Lip (1956), and The Arawak Girl (1958).

William Somerset Maugham, the famous English playwright, novelist and short storywriter was one of the most popular authors of his time, and reputedly the highest paid of his profession during the 1930s. Maugham lived from January1874 until December 1965.

Full of life

At one point in his life, Maugham wrote to DeLisser and said: "I enjoyed your two books; they are full of life and character. They are also, a trait not too common in modern fiction, extremely readable."

The White Witch of Rosehall was first published in 1929 by Earnest Benn Limited. It tells the story of 25-year old Robert Rutherford who came to Jamaica from England to work as the new bookkeeper at Rosehall estates near Montego Bay and learn all about the planter's business.

Described as a "tall, strongly built" man "with laughing grey eyes and a kindly, humorous mouth, straight nose and curly brown hair," he immediately becomes the object of attention of Mrs Palmer, the young thrice-married, white owner of Rosehall, the finest private residence in Jamaica. She was a woman whose three husbands had all died under suspicious circumstances

She was an attractive woman with "black eyes that were of peculiar and penetrating brightness; that looked through you ... smooth, glossy black hair and a fascinating mouth."

But Robert is also the object of attention of his "housekeeper, the free an' educated brown-skinned Millicent," the pretty granddaughter of the "coal black, tall, very old Guinea man" known as Takoo.

DeLisser's prose is beautiful. At one point he describes a view from the north coast of Jamaica: "At this hour, although it was late December, the sun's rays were sharp, but the heat was tempered and made easily endurable by the wind which blew in freely from the wide, open sea, a sea that glittered and flashed deep blue and green and purple; whose waves, now agitated by the wind, curled and hurled themselves against rock-bound beach or heavy sand, breaking in a welter of fretted white, hissing as the flashing water retreated, to return again and again in its ceaseless intermittent rush and flow.

Ruthless Italian

The White Witch of Rose Hall is, as Maugham said, "extremely readable". The young bookkeeper is fascinated by Annie Palmer and quickly falls under her spell, but he soon realises that she is an evil, manipulative person with uncontrollable fury who stops at nothing, not even murder, to gain her own ends. Annie is also skilled in obeah magic and because she is jealous of Millicent she plots to kill her.

Annie Palmer is described as "a sort of Lucrezia Borgia", a ruthless Italian noblewoman who lived at the turn of the 15th century.

The story is gripping and absorbing. Robert Rutherford, Ashman, Burbridge, Rider "the dissolute priest", and old Takoo, a high priest of Sassabonsum of the African forests, all form part of the backdrop to the life of Annie Palmer, mistress of Rose Hall.

It is a tragic and bitter story. There is a dash of the supernatural, added in the form of a three-legged bull, Old Hige, and a gigantic, spectral Rolling Calf. The unhappy slaves on the estate, "clothed in coarse blue osnaburg" and suffering through beatings with the whip, add yet another dimension to life on the plantations in Jamaica in 1831.

Great detail

DeLisser describes life on the estate in great detail. The Christmas holidays, for example, were "three days of grace that were given to the people by law, to pass in frolic and in merrymaking, or in complete rest". At that time there was no crack of the driver's whip or harsh commands, and the slaves enjoyed themselves.

The major characters are finely drawn and the author clearly reveals the petty jealousies, fears, hopes, plots and plans of each one.

After the end of the awful drama that unfolded at Rose Hall, Robert wearily took his seat on the boat that would take him back to England.

"Do you think you will ever come back to the West Indies?" an old parson asks him.

"Never," Robert replied.