As daughter of the blacksmith in her tiny Irish village fifteen-year-old Kitty Doyle knows little of the ways of the world but she has to grow up fast when her widowed father re-marries & she has no choice but to leave the family home. Luckily theres work to be found over the water in 1920s Liverpool & soon Kitty has a job in a grocers where she also catches the eye of the owner. With Kittys input the business is soon thriving -- but tragedy lies ahead & she must endure many trials & tribulations before she can find true happiness! ...

It is 1940 & Staff Nurse Polly Brown has been granted a posting at Cliffehaven Memorial Hospital on the south coast to be near her badly injured husband Adam. But her decision has meant that she has had to part with their beloved five-year-old daughter Alice who is travelling to safety in Canada. Polly's heart is torn in two as she says goodbye to Alice & heads to the Beach View boarding house in Cliffehaven where she throws herself into her work. But as she confronts the fact that Adam may not survive his injuries a telegram arrives at Beach View. The boat Alice was on has been torpedoed by a German U-boat... ...

A moving family drama of one young womans fight to survive & to find a place to call home 1938: Sixteen-year-old Kate Monroe is living in Birmingham far away from her family in Irel&. Her parents have always doted on her siblings Sally & James leaving no time for her. Kate harbours a dark secret a deep longing for her cousin. Feelings she must suppress in this deeply staunch Irish-Catholic community -- even if they are reciprocated. Crazed by her infatuation Kate is left with no option other than to up-roots once more & seek out a new life far away from the temptation of Tim Monroe. Will Kate find true love or will distance make the heart grow fonder? ...

When Georgiana Gregory & her maid Kitty make the long sea journey from their native Hull for New York they are expecting to begin a new life in the heady freedom of the newly-formed United States of America. Georgiana wants to escape from the confines of English life & to savour a land of emancipation & opportunity. But in New York she encounters a man passing himself off as her brother-in-law Edward Newmarch a local mill-owners son who has abandoned Georgianas sister & fled to America. Georgiana recognises the man standing before her as Edward Newmarchs valet Robert Allen
- Edward himself appears to have vanished. But Edward having escaped from a disastrous marriage in England is now in further trouble with women having agreed to marry the difficult daughter of a powerful landowner & businessman while pursuing his beautiful wife Sofia. As Georgiana & Kitty pursue the adventures of the frontier & Edward tries to flee his enemies the dangers of this new country seem too much to cope with.
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Saga magazine" ' Life Story' competition winner. From the streets of London to the Welsh countryside evacuee Iris Simantel tells of her desperate search for somewhere to belong in Far " From the East End". Born in 1938 under threat of looming war Iris spent her early years playing in the rubble of bombed buildings in Dagenham by day & cowering in a dusty shelter at night. But the hardships of poverty & the dreaded Blitz could not match the pain she felt at her parents' indifference. She prayed that just once her mother would hold her when the bombs rained down. But loneliness only intensified when she was evacuated. Finding the nurturing home she had always dreamt of in her adopted Welsh parents she wonders what when she returns to London after the war will be waiting for her. Will she ever be able to love her philandering father depressive mother & an angry bullying brother? Will her family even survive? Or will she have to look farther afield for the affection she so longs for? Prepare to be taken on a beautiful & emotional journey with Iris Simantel's nostalgic memoir " Far from the East End". Iris Simantel is the acclaimed winner of the " Saga Magazine" ' Life Story' competition telling of her evacuation from Dagenham to Wales & her family's post-War move to South Oxney. She now lives in Devon." ...

Far from the Madding Crowd" was Thomas Hardys first major literary success & it edited with an introduction & notes by Rosemarie Morgan & Shannon Russell in " Penguin Classics". Independent & spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy & the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each in contrasting ways unsettles her decisions & complicates her life & tragedy ensues threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in the fictional county of Wessex Hardys novel of swift passion & slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life & landscapes & with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. This edition based on Hardys original 1874 manuscript is the complete novel he never saw published & restores its full candour & innovation. Rosemarie Morgans introduction discusses the history of its publication & the Biblical & Classical allusions that permeate the novel. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) born Higher Brockhampton near Dorchester originally trained as an architect before earning his living as a writer. Though he saw himself primarily as a poet Hardy was the author of some of the late eighteenth centurys major novels: " The Mayor of Casterbridge" (1886) " Tess of the DUrbervilles" (1891) " Far from the Madding Crowd" (1874) & " Jude the Obscure" (1895). Amidst the controversy caused by " Jude the Obscure" he turned to the poetry he had been writing all his life. In the next thirty years he published over nine hundred poems & his epic drama in verse " The Dynasts". If you enjoyed " Far from the Madding Crowd" you might also like Elizabeth Gaskells " Mary Barton". " Wonderful...a landscape which satisfies every stir of the imagination & which ravishes the senses". (Ronald Blythe)." ...

'I shall do one thing in this life
- one thing for certain
- that is love you & long for you & keep wanting you till I die.'

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This is the Penguin English Library Edition" of " Far From the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy. 'I cannot allow any man to
- to
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Harper Collins is proud to present its new range of best-loved essential classics. Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. Beautiful impulsive & spirited Bathsheba Everdenes fortunes are changed forever when she inherits her own farm & becomes a woman of independent means. Set in Hardys evocative Wessex countryside Bathsheba is pursued by three very different suitors. The reliable & humble Gabriel Oak the vain & impetuous Troy & the reserved yet determined Boldwood. With the morals of rural society weighing heavily upon her it is through these relationships that Bathsheba experiences the torture of unrequited love & betrayal & discovers how random acts of chance & tragedy can alter the pathway of a life dramatically. ...

Far from the Madding Crowd is perhaps the most pastoral of Hardy's Wessex novels. It tells the story of the young farmer Gabriel Oak & his love for & pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba Everdene whose wayward nature leads her to both tragedy & true love. It tells of the dashing Sergeant Troy whose rakish philosophy of life was '...the past was yesterday; never the day after'. & lastly of the introverted & reclusive gentleman farmer Mr Boldwood whose love fills him with '...a fearful sense of exposure' when he first sets eyes on Bathsheba. The background of this tale is the Wessex countryside in all its moods. ...