Ellen Guppy is the reluctant heroine of Ethel Wilson’s final novel,Love and Salt Water. Saddened by a painful childhood, Ellen has adopted a skeptical independence and learned too well to hold her heart in reserve. But, as the novel unfolds, Ellen undergoes something of a sea-chan≥ learning to accept love along with the sorrow that is rarely far from love. First published in 1956,Love and Salt Wateris a mature and, at times, disturbing synthesis of Ethel Wilson’s major themes: the independence of human lives, the strange alchemy of chance, and the healing illumination of love.