Holtby is best known for this work, and for her lifelong friendship with the prominent diarist Vera Brittain, who edited this work.

More recent studies, in particular Marion Shaw's perceptive reappraisal, The Clear Stream, have demonstrated a much broader basis to her work, and have pointed to her connections with a variety of inter-war groups dedicated to political and social reform. This, btw, is something problematic in both novel and tv version and not Davies' fault, because the fact Carne forced himself on his wife on one occasion when she didn't want sex, resulting in an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy she was explicitly warned against that pushed the already neurotic woman over the edge post birth, is treated at his tragedy, not hers. I had read reviews where it seems that great liberties had been taken with the plot, I didn't see it myself.Williams still possesses the copy of South Riding that her mother Vera Brittain inscribed for her father, the political scientist George Catlin. The character who comes closest to a leading role, radical headmistresss Sarah Burton, suffers the most in the last third of the tv version because Davies as opposed to Holtby in the novel inevitably privileges Sarah-the-lover over Sarah-the-headmistresss and fataly changes some of her background and motivations.

There is old, clear tape to the exterior corners and spine ends as well as along the length of the spine edges and flap folds. It reveals a facinating world of the 1930s, of local government, and of rural England and its social structure. Carne and his reactionary politics never stop symbolizing everything Sarah is against, and she's not economially dependent on him; on the contrary, he's the one in increasing financial distress due to the depression and his inability to cope with modern times. The most important work of Winifred Holtby, published posthumously, set in the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire. It's an ensemble piece, structured around the activities of local government and the ways they intersect with the characters' lives.Quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper) ***A twelfth impression of the true first edition, published a couple of years after the first impression, but using the same attractive dustwrapper design. He leaves, because Sarah's main storyline in the tv version, which is only one storyline of hers in the novel, is her not quite romance with Robert Carne.

Catlin never overcame his resentment at his wife's friendship with the woman Vera described as her "second self".The history of Robert Carne’s wife and her internment in an asylum is very much the way the middle classes dealt with mental ill health. She lectured extensively for the League of Nations Union and was a member of the feminist Six Point Group. Half a chapter of romance that made me well up with an undescribable churning in heart is a testament to Holtby's brilliance. In some ways, Holtby’s debut novel, Anderby Wold, could be considered as a kind of ‘rehearsal’ for South Riding as some of the central themes are similar (e. Winifred Holtby's masterpiece is a rich evocation of the lives and relationships of the characters of South Riding.