The Trespass: A Novel - Hardcover

Ewing, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312314205 ISBN 13: 9780312314200

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2003

Synopsis

London 1849. The capital city is living in fear. Cholera is everywhere. Eminent MP Sir Charles Cooper decides it is too risky for his younger daughter, the strangely beautiful and troubled Harriet, and sends her-but not her beloved sister Mary-to the countryside.

Rusholme is a world away from London, full of extraordinary relations: Harriet's cousin Edward and his plans for a new life in New Zealand; Aunt Lucretia, reliant on afternoon wine and laudanum; the formidable Lady Kingdom and her two eligible, unobtainable sons. However, life in the country can offer only temporary respite to Harriet, who longs to return to her sister.

But when Harriet does come home, London has become more dangerous than ever. Her health, her freedom-even her sanity-are under threat. Escape is essential. Can a young, powerless girl change her life? Can she board the Amaryllis without being discovered? Does she realize that if she flees, more than one person will pursue her, literally to the end of the world?

The Trespass is historical fiction at its most gripping, stretching from the dark side of Victorian London to the optimism and energy of the early New Zealand settlements.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Ewing is a New Zealand-born actress and author who lives and works in London.

From Booklist

This historical novel presents a somewhat melodramatic view of life in 1849 London. Both London and the novel are thick with excrement, vomit, social oppression, cholera, and sex crimes. Harriet, a wealthy victim of incest in mourning for her beloved sister, flees London for a clean start in New Zealand, where her favorite cousin has just emigrated. Her crazed father and two gentlemen suitors follow closely behind. Along the way, both Harriet and her suitors befriend "lower-class" women and learn the plight of the poor. It's interesting that in a novel that argues so stridently for women's rights, the main character's only qualities seem to be that she is pretty and quiet. Despite the rather prurient descriptions of Harriet's father's intentions toward her, and the somewhat heavy-handed historical allusions (a character just happens to be friends with Charles Darwin, another is named for Mary Wollstonecraft), the adventure is fast paced and enjoyable. The author's point about the historical roles of women and the poor and the connection between them is also well taken. Marta Segal
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About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0312314205
• ISBN 13: 9780312314200
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416