London: Hutchinson, 1991
Set in South Wales in turn-of-the-century Penarth, P.H. Newby’s novel centres on an ambitious builder and freethinker, Charles White, and the woman he loves, Hannah, who has been brought up Chapel. After their marriage they take on a young servant girl, Polly, who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, James.
Their personal lives are soon overtaken by the onset of the 1914 war and the novel charts not only the lives of Charles and Hannah and their family, but of many others who are part of their circle. At the centre of the book, however, is Charles, fiercely independent, guilt-ridden, determined to work out for himself a code of conduct and a general philosophy that would explain the world around him.
