Life Errant

This volume is the autobiography of Mary Cicely Hamilton (1872-1952), a writer and campaigner for women's rights. During the First World War, Hamilton served with the Scottish women's ambulance unit and as an administrator in a military hospital outside Paris and from 1917 to 1919 she was a member of a repertory company organized by her friend Lena Ashwell which provided wartime entertainment for the troops. Hamilton's experiences of the war made her disillusioned with the idea that human progress was inevitable, and she came to dislike what she termed as 'the herd instinct' and became impatient with some of the more liberal ideals of her youth. This autobiography is critical of her belief in the perfectibility of human beings in her early career, although not of her commitment to feminism or of her decision to remain a spinster.