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Sylvia's Lovers

Nov 15, 2025 5:42 PM

Author:Elizabeth Gaskell,Shirley Foster,Shirley Foster

Sylvia's Lovers

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'.

Reviews

The plot is a marvel of ingenuity and makes most detective stories look primitive by comparison

—— John Brophy

A fine satire, filled with humorous incidents and much subtle philosophy. It is for intelligent, open-minded people with a sense of humour

—— Yorkshire Post

The author has a wonderful eye for village types, and the village of Clochemerle is built up for us as a shining and integrated whole - he has chosen to employ his great talents in describing a series of people, episoded and conversations that are ribald, exaggerated and bizarre. I must confess that its rollicking grossness pleased me

—— Howard Spring

A full-blooded uproarious farce in the Rabelaisian tradition

—— Times Literary Supplement

Poignant, impeccably written-especially heart-rending because it is so believable

—— Company

A brilliant, bulging historical novel ... Thrillingly accomplished ... Magnificent ... one finishes it already eager to begin the sequel

—— Guardian

His style is spare, that's what is so beautiful. His novels are genuine romans philosophies - novels illustrating ideas

—— Piers Paul Read

In a class by himself...the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety

—— William Golding

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