If Winter Comes

If Winter Comes is a novel by A. S. M. Hutchinson, first published in 1921. It deals with an unhappy marriage, eventual divorce, and an unwed mother who commits suicide. It was a bestseller on publication, and was adapted into film in 1923 and 1947. Title The title of the novel was taken from the last line of the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem "Ode to the West Wind": "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?". Plot summary The story is the life of Mark Sabre, a middle-aged and upstanding man, but one who is much maligned. Sabre is presented as Christlike in terms of the unjustified persecution he faces. Sabre enlists during World War I, he is badly injured, and he returns to his loveless marriage to his shrewish wife Mabel. Sabre gets into trouble when he tries to help Effie, an unwed mother, who is assumed to be his mistress. He is divorced, loses his job, and scandal follows when Effie kills herself. If Winter Comes presents sensational and controversial subjects of emotional adultery, unwed motherhood and suicide, but tempers them with moral, social and religious idealism.