Walking out on a demoralizing second marriage, Maggie Lloyd leaves Vancouver to work at a fishing lodge in the interior of British Columbia. But the serenity of Maggie's new surroundings is soon disturbed by the irrational jealousy of the lodge-keeper's wife. Restoring her own broken spirit, Maggie must also become a healer to others. In this, she is supported by her eccentric friend, Nell Severance, whose pearl-handled revolver - the Swamp Angel - becomes Maggie's ambiguous talisman and the novel's symbolic core.
Ethel Wilson's best-loved novel, Swamp Angel first appeared in 1954. It remains an astute and powerful study of one woman's integrity and of the redemptive power of compassion.

Ethel Wilson, Afterword by George Bowering