REVLTN TANNER'S LANE - Softcover

Rutherford, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0701219017 ISBN 13: 9780701219017

Publisher: (The Hogarth Press 1984), 1984

Synopsis

The 20th April 1814, an almost cloudless, perfectly sunny day, saw all London astir. On that day Lewis the Eighteenth was to come from Hartwell in triumph, summoned by France to the throne of his ancestors. London had not enjoyed too much gaiety that year. It was the year of the great frost. Nothing like it had been known in the memory of man. In the West of England, where snow is rare, roads were impassable and mails could not be delivered. Four dead men were dug out of a deep drift about ten miles west of Exeter. Even at Plymouth, close to the soft south-western ocean, the average depth of the fall was twenty inches, and there was no other way of getting eastwards than by pack-horses. The Great North Road was completely blocked, and there was a barricade over it near Godmanchester of from six to ten feet high. The Oxford coach was buried. Some passengers inside were rescued with great difficulty, and their lives were barely saved. The Solway Firth at Workington resembled the Arctic Sea, and the Thames was so completely frozen over between Blackfriars and London Bridges that people were able, not only to walk across, but to erect booths on the ice. Coals, of course, rose to famine prices in London, as it was then dependent solely upon water-carriage for its supply. The Father of his people, the Prince Regent, was much moved by the general distress of "a large and meritorious class of industrious persons," as he called them, and issued a circular to all Lords Lieutenant ordering them to provide all practicable means of removing obstructions from the highways.

About this title

About the Author

William Hale White (1831-1913) known by his pseudonym Mark Rutherford was a British writer and civil servant. White was born in Bedford educated at Bedford Modern School. He had already served an apprenticeship to journalism before he made his name as a novelist by the three books edited by his imaginary friend Reuben Shapcott, 'The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford' (1881), 'Mark Rutherford's Deliverance' (1885), and 'The Revolution in Tanner's Lane' (1887). Later books are 'Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers' (1890), 'Catharine Furze' (1893), 'Clara Hopgood' (1896), 'Pages from a Journal', with 'Other Papers' (1900), and The Early Life of Mark Rutherford. Though for a long time little appreciated by the public, his novels, particularly the earlier ones, share a power and style which must always give his works a place of their own in the literary history of their time. George Orwell described 'Mark Rutherford's Deliverance' as 'one of the best novels written in English'.

Edition details

• Publisher: (The Hogarth Press 1984)
• Publication date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0701219017
• ISBN 13: 9780701219017
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336