So Brief the Spring is a 1952 novel by the British writer Walter Greenwood. It is the first in the author's trilogy set in the fictional fishing port of Treeloe in Cornwall. It was developed out of a play which Greenwood had written in 1945. The novel is dedicated to Robert Newton who appeared in the play. It focuses on Randy Jollifer, formerly of the Royal Navy, attempting to settle down to postwar life in his home town. The book and its sequels sold steadily, without enjoying the spectacular popularity of his best-known work Love on the Dole.