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South Riding Kindle Edition

by Winifred Holtby (Author), Reinkarnation (Foreword)

37 customer reviews

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South Riding was Winifred Holtby’s last and greatest book. She died only few months after finishing it and never saw it in print.

South Riding won the James Tait Memorial Prize in 1936, and had been reprinted a dozen times when, two years later, it was made into a film starring Ralph Richardson, albeit with a different ending. It has been adapted for television twice: in 1974 for ITV by Stan Barstow and in 2011 for the BBC by Andrew Davies.

It was Holtby’s close friend Vera Brittain who pushed to get the manuscript of South Riding into print, despite the opposition of Winifred’s family.
Set in a mythical South Riding of Yorkshire the novel was still too close to home for Winifred Holtby’s mother Alice, who resigned her position of alderman on East Riding County Council on publication.

It seems Winifred had anticipated this. South Riding starts with a letter to her mother.

Length: 560 pages

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Page Flip: Enabled

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Editorial Reviews

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"A triumph of personality, a testament of its author's undaunted philosophy." --Vera Brittain, author, "Testament of Youth"

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a triumph of personality, a testament of its author's undaunted philosophy Vera Brittain

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Product details

File Size: 1202 KB
Print Length: 560 pages
Publisher: Reinkarnation (October 18, 2011)
Publication Date: October 18, 2011
Language: English
ASIN: B005Y4D37E
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

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Word Wise: Not Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,842,090 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #3287 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Movie Tie-Ins
- #12784 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > TV, Movie, Video Game Adaptations
- #79053 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

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Gillian Green

A wonderful picture of the power of the human spirit.

August 9, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is not new: it was first published in 1936 a few months after Holtby's early death, and it has never been out of print since. Holtby, was a close friend of Vera Brittain who wrote "Testament of Youth", the moving memoir of coming of age during the losses of World War I, and Brittain saw the book to publication after her friend's death. Winifred Holtby was an ardent feminist and the book deals with many issues facing Depression England. Her primary focus is the education of women and the effects of the class system on those opportunities, but it also deals tellingly with the developing results of global depression on a small part of England (though there is no such place as South Riding), housing for the poor, and treatment of the insane. It is in some ways a bleak book - many of those in it suffer from serious illness which the war and depression aggravate - but it is also a picture of courage: the women who continue their battles for justice with the memory of WWI losses strong in their memories; the men who try to keep their farms alive even as prices fall away; local councillors whose attempts to improve living conditions are complicated by the greed of themselves and others; a central character who desperately tries to provide for an insane wife while his world crumbles around him and who refuses to give in; the woman facing yet another child when the family cannot cope with the ones they have; the impact the death of a mother places on her eldest daughter. The central character, Sarah Burton, has survived the loss of friends and a lover in WWI and is determined to advance opportunities for young women despite the attitudes of the age. She is matched by Mrs. Beddows, a local alderman, warm and empathetic but who is herself constrained by social and economic norms. Overall, the book is a testament to the human spirit which rises above the most distressing events.

The book is now almost 80 years old and depicts a time long past, and yet it continues to have meaning. People may dress differently, speak differently, worry about slightly different things but the basics remain true. This is a wonderful book, a twentieth century classic, which deserves to be read into yet another century because it deals with people under pressure who rise above their tragedies. I highly recommend this book - I will read it again and again.

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J. Jamakaya

A Beautiful, Wise Novel

May 12, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I hope the recent BBC/Masterpiece Classic version of "South Riding" will compel more people to read this beautiful book, and I hope its publisher will issue a new edition here in the states. It is superb.

In "South Riding," Winifred Holtby presents a mosaic of Yorkshire life in the 1930s, exhibiting profound understanding and compassion for a wide array of characters of different classes, ages, and aspirations. There are probably about 15 main characters involved but she is so skillful in describing each of their circumstances that I had no trouble keeping track of them as I progressed through the book. Each chapter is like a perfect short story of its own, providing a character's background or motivation, introducing an obstacle or conflict, showing people as allies or at cross-purposes, always moving the action forward.

"South Riding" has everything: family love and family dysfunction, selflessness, greed, romance, loneliness, poverty, wealth, sex, births, deaths, folly, nobility, humor, hope, despair, good and bad government, conflict, compassion, corruption, and both sad AND happy endings! It is similar to George Eliot's "Middlemarch" in its ambitious, broad canvas of English life and its attention to individual detail. But I agree with another reviewer here that it is less long-winded and preachy than Eliot (sorry, George). Holtby's style is brisk and clear and easy to read. I believe "Middlemarch" was set in 1830s England, and I wonder if Holtby was consciously writing a "Middlemarch" for the 20th century. She certainly succeeded admirably. Sadly, "South Riding" was first published in 1936, a year after Holtby's death at age 37.

Having read the book, my only regret is that so many of my friends have not. Perhaps the 2011 TV adaptation will give it new life. To those who liked the TV show, please DO read the book. As is often the case, the book includes more detailed plot and characterization. It's beautiful and wise, and highly recommended.

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Clive Collins

South Riding, Good Reading

January 5, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a very good novel. Unjustly neglected, the book deserves a wider readership than it presently enjoys. The narrative technique employed by Holtby is surprisingly contemporary, being fragmented in the style employed by writers such as Rose Tremain in Music and Silence and Niall Williams in Four Letters of Love. It is also Modern, the use of headings taken from local council meetings to mark out areas within the narrative being somewhat reminiscent of John Dos Passos' use of newspaper clippings in his U.S.A. trilogy. (I do not wish to suggested that South Riding influenced Dos Passos, merely that Holtby shared a certain sensitivity to the zeitgeist of the times with him.)

There is some marvelous writing in this novel. The descriptions of landscape and townscape, weather, people, are all very, very well done. The characters, their accomplishments and failings, are memorable. The novel, though published some twelve years before I was born, still spoke very clearly to me.

There are some overwrought passages, particularly in the very last pages. This did not diminish the book's other qualities for me, however. I do wish that the Kindle edition of the book had been decently proofread. There were very many instances of mistyping or poor scanning and this became irritating. These quibbles aside, South Riding provided me with a most worthwhile reading experience.

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Most recent customer reviews

Humberto Lucero

Looks a little dated

Very interesting, Reading a book written just before the outbreak of WWII. I for one found the characters too stiff, the dialogs farfetched.Read more

Published 6 months ago

Marta McDowell

Finely drawn cast of characters

A fine read, full of humor. Between the wars. Rural life in Yorkshire in changing times. A bit preachy at the end, but entertaining and lively.

Published 1 year ago

AvisE

Haunted by the Menance of Another War

This is a fascinating glimpse into provincial English life in the years preceding WWII. It has a ring of truth to it and a mood of despair which made perfect sense when I found...Read more

Published 1 year ago

Amazon Customer

A great social commentary into the times that South Riding was ...

A great social commentary into the times that South Riding was set against - significant that most countries today face the same issues.Read more

Published 1 year ago

Amazon Customer

This item was not the edition I was under the ...

This item was not the edition I was under the impression I was ordering. Also it was not "very good". It was acceptable-spine was creased and broken.

Published on October 13, 2015

Holly B. Kurtz

Wonderful book, lousy editing.

I very much enjoyed South Riding as far as the content but the editing was atrocious. Perhaps it was not edited at all. My rating was based on the story itself.Read more

Published on September 25, 2015

Laura

Worth the read!!

I had to read this book for my Novel class in college and I loved it!! It's a pastiche (or a re-writing) of Jane Eyre and it covers multiple subjects such as education, poverty,...Read more

Published on July 13, 2015

Rivkah Maccaby

Beautiful book

This isn't really a book with "twists." It's about a teacher in a poorer area of England (South Riding is fictional, but there's a East, West and North Riding).Read more

Published on May 7, 2015

Yvonne Speight

I enjoyed

An interesting book. I enjoyed it

Published on April 23, 2015

Linda E. Chatterjee

... scene and creating the characters that I was too bored to keep reading and waiting for some action

The author seemed to take so long setting the scene and creating the characters that I was too bored to keep reading and waiting for some action.

Published on April 18, 2015

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