Winston Graham (1908-2003) was a novelist…who moved to Cornwall as a young man and lived there for many years. He was interested in Cornish history. He was a prolific author who wrote thrillers and other novels (including Marnie, which was later filmed by Hitchcock)….but in 1945 he published his first Poldark novel, Ross Poldark... which started off the series.
It was popular and he wrote
11 more novels over the rest of his life.
The first novel was about Ross, the son of a Cornish squire, who had a
small estate and a mine… in the late 18th century. Ross's father is a younger son, his father Joshua only had a modest fortune, and an estate which is little more than a large farm. Ross went into the army and is now returning from the wars in
America, only to find that his fiancée Elizabeth, thinking he had died, has become engaged to his
cousin Francis. This event sets off many of the problems in his life, which make up the story. Elizabeth is a highly strung refined delicate
girl who has always been a little afraid of Ross, who has had a reputation for
wildness. He is angry with his cousin Francis and it creates a rift in the family.
Ross is something of a
maverick, politically somewhat left of centre (though he later becomes an ally
of the Tory radical Canning). He
sympathizes with the poor and working class of Cornwall and tries to help
people in trouble. However he finds that
on his return that his father has died, his estate is run down and he is left
with 2 drunken and useless servants, the comical Jud and Prudie Paynter. He has to try to set the estate to
rights, and to provide work for the poor, with his mines… but times are hard,
and mining is an uncertain business.
Ross’s feelings for
Elizabeth continue to torment him, though she is something of a cold woman,
emotionally and sexually. She marries
Francis but she does retain some feelings for her old admirer -which makes for
problems. In addition, Ross makes an
enemy of George Warleggan who is from a nouveau riche family who has become
very prosperous... by banking and mining. .
George is conscious of his
own “lower class” origins and resents the Poldarks for being gentry and
he is a harsh man who sees no reason to sympathize with the poor as some of the
more genteel families do. He is also one of
the richest men in the county and he and Ross are soon at loggerheads.
Ross while trying to improve his estate, meets with and rescues a young girl, a miner’s
daughter, who has run away from home, and takes her into his house as a
servant. Demelza becomes devoted to him
and when she is 17, they become lovers.
Ross does not wish to exploit one
of his servants and he decides to marry her, rather than keep her as a mistreess.
Demelza then has to try to learn to
fit into Cornish society as his wife.
The Poldark series starts
with Ross as a young man just home from the Wars and continues until the final
volume which is set when Ross is around 58 – 1818-20 or so. He is by then the father of 5 children... He
and Demelza have had a long and stormy but happy marriage... Over the series,
we learn about the history of Cornwall, the Wars with France, politics, mining
and the early days of steam engineering (a subject I’ve always struggled
with!).. Cornish industry centered on mines, fishing and sea faring… Cornwall was something of a “Wild West” at
times, with a lot of smuggling and law breaking going on, due to the war with France. There was also some “wrecking” or stealing of
goods from ships that ran aground.
Ross and Demelza's marriage at times reaches crises due to infidelities, on each side... Ross always retains a fondness for Elizabeth, and he all but forces her to have sex with him, in anger, when he hears she is going to marry George Warleggan. Demelza feels alienated from him and has a brief romance with a young man called Hugh Armitage.
The conflicts between the Poldarks and Warleggans continue, with Demelza's brother Drake falling in love with Morwenna, Elizabeth's cousin.
Bella, the final volume -was
written towards the end of Graham’s life... and I found it interesting because
while it is still based in Cornwall, the focus is on Bella, Ross and Demelza’s youngest
daughter, who has a beautiful voice and who wishes to become an actress and
singer. There is a good deal about the
history of music, opera and theatre in the Regency period. Some of it is a bit badly written with rather
modern language –and attitudes but it is an entertaining read…
The Poldark series has now
been televised in 2 different adaptions, though it has not covered all 12
novels. The first series was on TV in
the 1970s and was very popular, with Robin Ellis as Ross and Angharhad Rees as
Demelza. It was not a fully satisfactory
adaptation and in some ways annoyed Winston Graham, because he felt that it was
historically inaccurate and he did not like the way they portrayed Demelza in
the early episodes. That adaptation only
covered the books up to 1800. The later
novels had not then been written. The
more recent adaptation has so far only covered the earlier novel... It has been
on TV in the past few years and has also been very popular...
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