South Riding

'One of my favourite novels: a life-enhancing, twentieth-century masterpiece' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON'Rich in humour and worldly insight' INDEPENDENT'A novel that works beautifully on all sorts of levels, capturing the life of a whole community even as it offers us the passions, frustrations and tragedies of individual lives. . . I can't say enough good things about this book' SARAH WATERS***A classic masterpiece of England between the wars, South Riding is a warm, poignant, panoramic portrait of one Yorkshire community When Sarah Burton returns to her hometown as headmistress she is full of ambition, determined to create a great school and to inspire her girls to take all they can from life. But in the aftermath of the First World War, the country is in depression and ideals are hard won. Lydia Holly, the scholarship girl from the shacks, is the most brilliant student Sarah has ever taught, but when her mother's health fails, her education must be sacrificed. Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall stands for everything Sarah despises: his family has farmed the South Riding for generations, their position uncontested. Yet Sarah cannot help being drawn to this proud, haunted - and almost ruined - man.South Riding is a life-enhancing classic, bringing vividly to life a rural community on the brink of change.This beautiful 90th anniversary edition contains a preface by Shirley Williams, an introduction by Marion Shaw and an epitaph by Vera Brittain.