Three white sisters return to their Caribbean island home to find their family living in poverty and mental anguish. Each sister responds to the family's plight in different ways - seeking change through romance or politics or money. Intenselyautobiographical, The Orchid House describes a colonial society in decay as seen through the (usually) loyal eyes of the sisters' childhood nurse, Lally: "Beauty and disease, beauty and sickness, beauty and horror: that was the island."First published in 1953, it was republished in 1982 as a Virago Modern Classic. It was later filmed by Channel 4 for a four-part series (1991) with Diana Quick, Frances Barber and Elizabeth Hurley (available as a DVD).This edition has a new and incisive introduction by the Dominican scholar Schuyler Esprit, which casts a fresh and contemporary eye on Allfrey's life and work.