Optimism and the will to optimism are different things, and Miss Holtby’s gallant effort to infer from her heroine’s change of heart a more hopeful future for society at large does not ring quite true as I have had the misfortune to read for a very long time. Inscribed by publisher to half title: "This edition of 175 copies has been printed for the author's friends with a personal introduction by Vera Brittain," foxed, 2cm closed tears to bottom margin of pp. Where the novel and the tv version fatally part ways is in the aftermath of Sarah's and Carne's one and only night together. When Brittain and Catlin set up home in London after their marriage, Holtby joined them as the third member of the household. The first edition, first impression, of Winifred Holtby's best known work, 'South Riding', in the original decorative illustrated.

The leading characters are Sarah Burton, an idealistic young headmistress; Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall, tormented by his disastrous marriage; Joe Astell, a socialist fighting poverty; and Mrs Beddows, the first woman alderman of the district. Through South Riding, Holtby went a long way towards achieving "the shining immortality" that Brittain had wanted for her. A twelfth impression of the true first edition, published as the First Cheap Edition (as stated on the dustwrapper) in September, 1938. Holtby is generally good at writing teenagers without either prettifying or demonizing them; one plot thread more important in the novel than in the tv version is what happens with one of the teachers, who is unable to keep discipline or any kind of authority among her students (and is simply bad her job in this sense, though she's well educated and also depends on the income completely as do her elderly parents, and, being in her mid-40s, is unlikely to get another school position if she's dismissed, which is one of Sarah's main dilemmas in the book) and ends up being bullied by the girls into hitting Carne's daughter (in the secureness of her privilege the main bully), which forces the woman to resign. While the novel undoubtedly remains a fascinating depiction of a time and place, it is more than that.

Rochester of Jane Eyre fame, and a fascinatingly both similar and very different one from the simultanously written and more well known update, Maxim de Winter in Rebecca. This is a novel of hope amidst the numerous challenges faced by many of the characters, and the obstacles that lie in Sarah Burton's path. Plus, there is the Carnes’ fourteen-year-old daughter Midge, a somewhat wayward child who is need of a steadying influence in her life, ideally a feminine one.

A radio version starring Sarah Lancashire and Philip Glenister was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999. Beddowes is a pov character, it's clear in the book that she loves Carne, though because of the age difference and the fact she's married she would never do something non-platonic. I was just saying to Karen how Anderby Wold could almost be seen as a kind of rehearsal for some of the themes Holtby chose to explore here, particularly the rate of social change and its impact of the role of women.Brittain's epitaph 'Ave Atque Vale' and Elizabeth Ivemey's photographic portrait only featured in this limited, commemorative edition of South Riding, which mourned and celebrated a beloved friend and talented author: "Her radiant life had not reached its prime nor her vital worth its zenith. I will say that about a third of the way through I was comparing it to Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio, which I loved. A robust copy of the special edition of Holtby's sprawling mistresspiece of provincial life, and government, in changing times.

Alderman Beddows is an interesting character, particularly in light of the link to Holtby’s own mother, Alice. In the novel, Sarah before coming to South Riding had three major romantic relationships; one when she was very young in the war with the inevitable tragic ending when he died, one when she was a teacher in South Africa which ended for political reasons (she also left South Africa because of apartheid, and remember, this novel was finished in 1935), and one with a Labour mp who wanted her to give up her job and marry him and was shocked when she said she'd rather be his mistress instead.

With her flaming red hair and forthright nature, Sarah is far from the archetypal mousy spinster; instead she is bright, optimistic and fiercely committed to the development of young women. In the case of Miss Sarah Barton, the Council’s action changed the entire shape and color of a life. There is a common force which affects the lives of all these people if it does not actually bring them together: the County Council.