Лучшие книги Уинифред Холтби

Review

"a fascinating depiction of a time and place... in its celebration of social spirit, and in Burton's final urging of her girls to serve yet also to challenge and question and strive, it feels both timely and necessary"
The Observer

"Rich in humour and worldly insight... this panoramic story of local politics stands as testament not only to Holtby's strong belief in public service, but her affection for the people and "rain-rinsed green" landscapes of her native Yorkshire"
The Independent

Book Description

A new TV tie-in edition of Winifred Holtby's classic novel South Riding, accompanying Andrew Davies's three-part adaptation for BBC1.

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 - there is nobody else to care for the children.

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 rich, panoramic novel, bringing vividly to life a rural community on the brink of change.

Winifred Holtby affectionately observes the foibles of human nature in this sparkling satire, first published in 1931

The first novel by the author of "South Riding".

The third novel by the author of "South Riding".

Joanna Burton was born in South Africa but sent by her missionary father to be raised in Yorkshire. There she dreams of the far-off lands she will visit and adventures to come. At 18, tall and flaxen-haired, she meets Teddy Leigh, a young man on his way to the trenches of World War I. Joanna has been in love before—with Sir Walter Raleigh, with the Scarlet Pimpernel, with Coriolanus—but this is different. Teddy tells her he's been given the world to wear as a golden ball. Joanna believes him and marries him, but the fabled shores recede into the distance when, after the war, Teddy returns in ill health. The magic land turns out to be the harsh reality of motherhood and life on a Yorkshire farm, yet still she dares to dream.

This is the story of Muriel Hammond, at twenty living within the suffocating confines of Edwardian middle-class society in Marshington, a Yorkshire village. A career is forbidden to her. Pretty, but not pretty enough, she fails to achieve the one thing required of her - to find a suitable husband. Then comes the First World War, a watershed which tragically revolutionises the lives of her generation. But for Muriel it offers work, friendship, freedom, and one last chance to find a special kind of happiness...

Holtby gives us Woolf the critic, the essayist and the experimental novelist in a critical memoir which is of particular interest as the work of one intelligent, though very different, novelist commenting on another. Holtby's careful reading of Woolf's work is set in the context of the debate between modernist and traditional writing in the 1920s and 1930s. Although Holtby greatly admires Woolf's art, she considers its limitations as an elite form that ignores the material conditions of everyday life and the consequent social responsibility expected of the novel. Choosing to write about Woolf as 'the author whose art seemed most of all removed from anything I could ever attempt, and whose experience was most alien to my own,' Holtby has written a candid appreciation of the complex, groundbreaking work of a contemporary writer at the height of her career.