Book description
Joanna Burton was born in South Africa but sent by her missionary
father to be raised in Yorkshire. There she dreams of the far-off lands
she will visit and adventures to come. At eighteen, tall and
flaxen-haired, she meets Teddy Leigh, a young man on his way to the
trenches of the First World War. Joanna has been in love before - with
Sir Walter Raleigh, with the Scarlet Pimpernel, with Coriolanus - but
this is different. Teddy tells her he's been given the world to wear as
a golden ball. Joanna believes him and marries him, but the fabled
shores recede into the distance when, after the war, Teddy returns in
ill health. The magic land turns out to be the harsh reality of
motherhood and life on a Yorkshire farm. Yet still she dares to dream.
Winifred Holtby (1898-1935), journalist, critic, feminist, pacifist and
author won the James Tait Black Memorial prize with South Riding, her
last novel.
