There is hope that the cause for beatification of the social activist Dorothy Day will receive a boost with Pope Francis’ visit to the US next year. He has been presented with copies of her writings and her Archdiocese of New York has hired a lay theologian to work on the project Dorothy Day, legendary social activist and Servant of God, wrote one novel, which was reissued in 2011. The Eleventh Virgin, written before her conversion, is said to describe something of her bohemian life before Catholicism. It is also said to draw on Day’s personal experi­ence of abortion. I am an ardent Day fan, but I cannot bring myself to order it. The blurb tells us that she attempted to buy and destroy as many copies of the book in her lifetime as she could. Writers will well know that gu