Set in Cumbria and covering the period from 1898 to the early twenties, this is the powerful saga of John Tallentire, first farm labourer, then coal miner, and his wife Emily. John's struggle to break free from the humiliating status of a 'hired man' is the theme of a novel which has been hailed as a classic of its kind - as meticulously detailed as a social document, as evocative as the writings of Hardy and Lawrence.

Bragg's acclaimed story of one family's experience of the social and cultural upheaval of England as it moves into the twentieth century

About the Author
Melvyn Bragg is a writer and broadcaster whose first novel, For Want of a Nail, was published in 1965. His novels since include The Maid of Buttermere, The Soldier's Return, A Son of War, Credo and Now is the Time, which won the Parliamentary Book Award for fiction in 2016. His books have also been awarded the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award, and have been longlisted three times for the Booker Prize (including the Lost Man Booker Prize). He has also written several works of non-fiction, including The Adventure of English and The Book of Books about the King James Bible. He lives in London and Cumbria.

Reviews
An intensely moving, deeply worked book * Sunday Telegraph *
It is an extraordinary blend of delicacy and harsh simplicity which makes Melvyn Bragg a remarkable novelist. The perception with which he traces the currents of feeling between John and Emily, the gathering and receding of emotion, have a cumulative power of enormous conviction, a steady hardening of experience which is deeply unsetting and moving * The Times *
A magnificently strong and sinewy novel * Sunday Mirror *



Book Information
ISBN 9780340770900
Author Melvyn Bragg
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Sceptre
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
Weight(grams) 170g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 22mm