The New Moon with the Old.

Dodie Smith, best known for her enduring children’s novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians and the widely acclaimed I Capture the Castle, also explored themes of identity, independence, and social transition in her lesser-known adult novels. The New Moon with the Old (1963) exemplifies her light comic style while reflecting postwar British anxieties about class, self-reinvention, and the shifting roles of women. The novel follows four siblings and their housekeeper as they navigate unexpected independence after their father's abrupt flight from scandal, each pursuing a dramatically different path.