Author:Elizabeth Gaskell,Shirley Foster,Shirley Foster,Shirley Foster

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'.
A brilliant, sometimes terrible novel about the generation war within a family, as witty and cool as it is heart-rending
—— Auberon Waugh , Daily MailPainful...gripping...her "private" story reaches far beyond the merely personal
—— ObserverA great, heaving countryside of a book...consistently funny...fluent and elusive, while retaining just the right hint of poison
—— TelegraphStephenson mixes a library’s worth of ideas with compulsive derring-do … its scope and inventiveness become addictive.
—— Time OutA breathless ride…the writing gives an immersive sense of time and place
—— FaceA brilliant, bulging historical novel ... Thrillingly accomplished ... Magnificent ... one finishes it already eager to begin the sequel
—— GuardianHis style is spare, that's what is so beautiful. His novels are genuine romans philosophies - novels illustrating ideas
—— Piers Paul ReadIn a class by himself...the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety
—— William Golding






