Customer Reviews

Ross Poldark

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I first encountered the Poldark story on PBS Masterpiece Theatre 25 years ago. This series is written over four decades by a master craftsman of history and character detail. Set in Cornwall just after the American Revolutionary War, it opens with the return of Ross Poldark to England after being wounded and thought dead in that war. He returns to find his father dead, his finances in disarray, his fiance now engaged to his cousin, the Warleggans have taken over much of Cornwall, and his house full of livestock and drunken servants. Books 1-4 are found in the video series Poldark. Books 5-7 are covered in the video series Poldark 2. I did not know Graham had written additional books in this series until a search on Amazon turned up the others. Books 8-12 cover the children of Ross and Demelza, and they are amazing. Most writers get into a rut and create the same novel over and over again. Winston Graham keeps finding fresh things to say and innovative things for his characters to do in these books. This picture of Cornwall at the turn of the 19th century rings true from beginning to end. The love, passion, struggles, and lives of this family are so engaging that I could read these books over and over again. The perils and joys of mining and seamanship, farming, religion, banking, courting, medicine, justice, war, all form a backdrop for the day-to-day details as this time and place come to life.

These people love and hate and dispise each other, they forgive each other, and sometimes learn to live with each other. Through each book the cast is expanded with wonderful characters full of quirks and individual personalities. But the Poldarks remain: Ross and Demelza, his cousin Francis and Elizabeth; his arch-enemy George Warleggan and their children: Jeremy, Clowance, Bella, Geoffrey Charles, Valentine and Ursula. Each grows and develops, matures and becomes seasoned as the story moves through rebellion, lost love, marriage, business, sickness, death, war, success, and tragedy.

The series books in order are:

1. Ross Poldark (1951, original title The Renegade)
2. Demelza (1953, original title Elizabeth's Story)
3. Jeremy Poldark (1954, original title Venture Once More)
4. Warleggan (1955, original title The Last Gamble)
5. The Black Moon (1973)
6. The Four Swans (1976)
7. The Angry Tide (1977)
8. The Stranger from the Sea (1981)
9. The Miller's Dance (1982)
10. The Loving Cup (1984)
11. The Twisted Sword (1990)
12. Bella Poldark (subtitled The Final Poldark Novel!)

I hope that you will have the opportunity to enjoy them as much as I have.

I am glad to see the Poldark novels are back in print. I had to beg, borrow and seek out a complete set in used bookstores.

I won't take time to give a plot synopsis or even much of a review, but let me say this: The Poldark series is the most powerful reading experience I have ever had. I read all 11 books (this was before the 12th came out) in just under two months. I did nothing but read, day and night. I am a "literary professional" and very demanding of high standards in the books I read; I don't read a lot of popular fiction. But I could not put these books down. I can't quantify or analyze or explain why the Poldarks are so magnificent. They just are. And everyone I have recommended the books to has had the same experience. They will take over your life. You will dream about these people and catch yourself thinking about them as if they were real. If you treasure such reading experiences, brace yourself and dive in. I envy anyone who gets to read the Poldarks for the first time.

In 1783, Ross Poldark, the title character to the opening volume (published in 1945) of the magnificent Poldark series, the great undertaking of Cornish writer Winston Graham's ninety-three-year life, is first introduced to us as a young man in his early twenties, a de-commissioned infantry officer, recently returned from the brutality of the War of Rebellion in Colonial America. Given up for dead and in fact wounded almost to the point of death, Poldark returns to his native Cornwall, a scarred, limping figure, still spirited but aged and hardened by the horrors of war. Grimly, the adventurous risk-taker Poldark discovers his father, the local squire and something of a lothario, is dead, his fiancée, Elizabeth, believing Ross killed in combat, is now engaged to wed Ross' cousin, Francis, and that an ambitious family of rising commercial entrepreneurs, the Warleggans, are in the process of trying to persuade Ross's uncle to sell them the mines that would have been Ross's has his father's will been penned without the apparent tragedy of his son's death foremost in his mind. The story spreads like the branches of a massive tree and before the conclusion of this, volume one, we come to meet the sort of characters that will never be forgotten, and find ourselves witness to scenes and situations that stir the imagination.

What separates the dozen Poldark novels from so many other historical works is firstly the intricate, good-natured, involving plotline Graham sustained throughout the sixty years he was writing about these characters, but above that, there is within each Poldark work a sense that one is entering a past time, not merely reading of it. Life as Graham writes in any of these books is a near three-dimensional voyage two hundred years backward, and he leaves few stones unturned. When one reads these novels one learns about the mining industry of the era, the banking industry, social customs, warfare, and contemporary attitudes on an encyclopedic range of subjects. One witnesses the rise of Methodism, and grasps its role as an outlet to quell ill-will among the English lower classes, as nothing did among the violent-minded masses of 1780's France. Graham tells us what people in those times wore, ate, drank, what they would have felt, witnessed, heard, smelled, thought, and feared. He takes a modern person into what might very well be described as a psychological/sociological time machine. These books boil with the gamut of human emotion and passion, from hate to lust, to love, to desire for all manner of possessions.

Ross Poldark and the eleven other novels that follow it are storytelling at its old-fashioned greatest, and this book launches what I truly feel is the greatest historical saga in the English language.

He passed away on July 10. If you haven't read the Poldark series, and care anything for cornwall, the 18th century, historical romance in its truest form, historical fiction, or just a darn good story that will change your life, then you should buy this book. Ross Poldark, the initially impoverished aristocrat, is a hero men can admire and women can fall in love with. These people will be more real to you than folks you talk to every day....

I just finished reading this book. I have read several others in this series and highly recommend them. I think this and the other Poldark books are some of the best historical novels I have read in years.!! Winston Graham writes so well of life in 1780's Cornwall.
Ross Poldark, our hero, has just returend to his family home after 2 years fighting in the Revolutionary war, and is hoping for a reunion with the woman he loves. The author describes every detail of life as if he had lived in those times. One becomes very involved with the characters.
One constant theme in this book is the contrast between the desperately poor common people and the gentry. Ross Poldark is a gentleman who is unusual for his concern with the wellbeing of the "lower classes."
You probably won't want to stop with just this book. I'm very glad to hear that these are finally being reprinted in the U.S.

This whole series is superb. Fine historical fiction--fine fiction, period. Wonderful characters, evocative sense of place and time. I am so pleased to se that they have been re-published and will find a new audience. Read them all, in order, soon.

This is the first Poldark novel introducing Ross Poldark, Cornwall mining owner/farmer/squire and his extended family.

I especially enjoyed listening to the audiotapes narrated by
Tony Britton; his chararcters' accents are humorous and entertaining. I love the Poldark series and after I read or
listen to all the novels I'd like to see the videos.

Wonderful stories and characters, highly enjoyable. Hard to
put down.

Here we become acquainted with Ross Poldark and the life, society, and natural beauty of Cornwall.

Ross returns from America in 1783, worldly-weary, seeking the security of home and hearth to recoup his spirit. For a time, he is emotionally adrift as he goes about the business of making needed improvements to the family estate and opening a mine.

Through Winston Graham's writing, you become fully immersed in the lives of Ross, his relations, and friends.

Like a fine wine, the story gets better in the telling. Highly recommended.

I have recently been introduced to this series and started reading books which were originals from the 40's. It is a wonderful series and I have now read 10 of the novels and wish it would never end. Great piece of history and family. It is so nice to be able to read "new" books, even though I enjoyed the yellowed pages of the old ones I have. Don't miss it! Also have the BBC Video set which is in black in white, but interesting, none-the-less.

I just finished the Poldark Saga (all 12 books) and can't recommend them enough!! I was able to secure 10 of the 12 from our local library system but had to buy the other two due to unavailability, and they are well worth their purchase price. I'm a lover of Brit lit and this series takes you to the Cornish coast and proceeds to envelop you into the lives of an engaging family and their friends and foes. Great descriptions of the coast and the weather, both of which figure greatly into the story lines, and the characters are indeed people you would enjoy knowing.

The quest for the 12 books was well worth the effort. Go forth and enjoy!!