Pointed Roofs

Pointed Roofs is the first installment in Dorothy M. Richardson’s Pilgrimage sequence of autobiographical novels. It is also one of the first novels identified with the modernist technique of stream of consciousness.

Set in the early 1890s, Pointed Roofs centers on seventeen-year-old Miriam Henderson. After her family runs into financial troubles, Miriam is sent to Germany to teach English at a finishing school in Hanover. The narrative chronicles Miriam’s daily life at the school, as well as outings to the city and the countryside with the other teachers and pupils. All the while, it tells of her experience of living abroad, her attitude to the people around her, her future prospects, and her thoughts on religion, literature, and the status of women in society.