Book description
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.
Melvyn Bragg's first novel, FOR WANT OF A NAIL, was published in 1965
and since then his novels have included THE HIRED MAN, for which he won
the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, WITHOUT A CITY WALL, winner of the John
Llewellyn Rhys Prize, CREDO, THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE and THE SOLDIER'S
RETURN, which was published to huge critical acclaim in 1999 and won the
WHSmith Literary Award. He has also written several works of non-fiction
including SPEAK FOR ENGLAND, an oral history of the twentieth century,
RICH, a biography of Richard Burton, ON GIANTS' SHOULDERS, a history of
science based on his BBC radio series, THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH, 12
BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, IN OUR TIME and THE SOUTH BANK SHOW: FINAL
CUT. He was born in 1939 and educated at Wigton's Nelson Thomlinson
School and at Oxford where he read history. He is President of the
National Campaign for the Arts, and in 1998 he was made a life peer. He
won an Academy Fellowship at the BAFTA Television Awards in 2010.
