Sylvia's Lovers (Penguin Classics)

by Elizabeth Gaskell (Author), Shirley Foster (Introduction)

• New

  Paperback
  1996

  $15.83

  Elizabeth Gaskell's only historical novel, Sylvia's Lovers , is set in 1790 in the seaside town of Monkshaven (Whitby) where press-gangs wreak havoc by seizing young men for service in the Napoleonic wars. One of their victims is whaling harpooner, Charley Kinraid, whose charm and vivacity have captured the heart of Sylvia Robson. But Sylvia's devoted cousin, Philip Hepburn, hopes to marry her himself and, in order to win her, deliberately withholds crucial information with devastating consequences. With its themes of suffering, unrequited love, and the clash between desire and duty, Sylvia's Lovers is one of the most powerfully moving of all Gaskell's novels, reputedly described by its author as 'the saddest story I ever wrote'.

• Used

  Paperback
  1982

  $4.47

  In the 1790s the Yorkshire seaside town of Monkshaven is disturbed by the arrival of the press-gang who come to seize and ship their captives abroad to fight in the Napoleonic wars. In this atmosphere of unease Sylvia's Lovers portrays the rivalries of two men, the sober tradesman Philip Hepburn, who has been devoted to his cousin Sylvia since her childhood, and the whaleship harpooner Charley Kinraid, who is gallant and charming with a reputation as a 'light-of-love' with women. Sylvia's tragedy, vividly and movingly dramatized, is to love one of these men, but to marry the other. Shirley Foster provides an Introduction to this Penguin Classics edition, together with notes and appendices on the novel's historical sources and text.