Set in the East End of London during the First World War, A Curate’s Promise tells the story of Benjamin Digby, the curate of the title. The younger son from an old upper-class country family, he promised his mother when he was a child that he would enter the Church of England clergy. As a minister of religion, he is exempt from the conscription that was introduced in 1916; but then his brother – a military officer on the Western Front – sends him a blank cheque to show his gratitude to The Salvation Army for their work to support soldiers. Digby uses the opportunity to contact General Bramwell Booth and requests to be shown the social work of The Salvation Army on the home front.
A Curate’s Promise was the final published novel of Margaret Harkness who wrote under the pseudonym John Law. First published in 1921, it had been out of print until this new edition, available to mark the centenary of the novel’s publication.
Apart from providing a view of London in a unique period of time, the short novel presents a picture of the way The Salvation Army was touching lives and influencing people a century ago, and we hope it will still encourage those who follow the work of The Salvation Army today.
