South Riding

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South Riding is a rich, panoramic novel, bringing vividly to life a rural community on the brink of change. Holtby is best known for this work, and for her lifelong friendship with the prominent diarist Vera Brittain, who edited this work. The major obstacle she faced was the indomitable figure of Holtby's mother, Alice, the first woman alderman of the East Riding. As opposed to Rochester and Maxim de Winter, he on the one hand not only married for love but is still in love with the mad wife in question, but on the other also bears and acknowledges guilt direct responsibility for her state of being.

A twelfth impression of the true first edition, published as the First Cheap Edition (as stated on the dustwrapper) in September, 1938. Sarah knows that Lydia Holly is by far the best prospect the school has to offer – pupils like Lydia only come along once in a lifetime – but she is also aware that family responsibilities may scupper the girl’s future. It is very different to present day rural England: there are few incomers, no weekenders or long-distance commuters, and few retirees, although one, Stanley Dollan, a retired solicitor from Kingsport (Hull) who defeats Carne in a County Council election, is in fact an example of this new breed. Robert Carne is a gentleman-farmer, struggling to make ends meet because his wife is in an asylum (an expensive one) and trying to bring up his daughter alone.Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall stands for everything Sarah despises: his family has farmed the South Riding for generations, their position uncontested.

A score of other themes, each with its own individuality, are woven into the amazingly rich and complex pattern of South Riding. It reveals a facinating world of the 1930s, of local government, and of rural England and its social structure. Alderman Beddows is an interesting character, particularly in light of the link to Holtby’s own mother, Alice.Completed just before she died, it shows Winifred Holtby at the full height of her remarkable powers and brings home even more forcibly how great a loss current literature has suffered'. Yes, i remember it being a British production, shown on US tv by PBS as part of the Masterpiece Theater series, back in the 80s. The dust jacket is poor with chips to the corners and spine ends, darkening to the spine, light overall soiling.