Sylvia's Lovers Part I

Sylvia's Lovers is Elizabeth Gaskell's fifth novel. She said it was the saddest story she ever wrote. It is unusual in that it is about working people rather than the gentry or middle class like most novels up to that time. It also has characters who are very passionate and emotional, something akin to the characters in Wuthering Heights. Sylvia Robson, the heroine is a farmer's daughter. She has never had any education and can barely read and write. She is also hot tempered. She is happy with the work of the home and farm. Her mother Bell tries to persuade her to learn a little more, but she is not interested in books. She is unusual for a Victorian heroine in her class position and lack of the ladylike refinements. To please her mother, she does take some lessons. The book is set in the Napoleonic Wars. Sylvia lives in a seaside town, and she falls in love with a young man who works on a whaling ship. Her father had a similar job before he gave up the sea and became a farmer. Daniel, her father is barely literate.. He is a passionate hot headed man, who is much less refined than his wife Bell. Sylvia has a cousin, Philip, who works in a cloth selling business in the town, (based on Whitby). He is a prim and proper young man; he works for a Quaker family, and is more like Edgar Linton. Sylvia finds him rather dull and is irritated when her mother persuades her to learn reading and writing properly, being taught by Philip. He is keen to teach her, as he loves her and wants to spend time with her. Having met Kincaid, the whaler, Sylvia does not notice that Philip is falling deeply in love with her. The story was originally called Philip's Idol as the theme is about making an idol of a person. The press gang come to the town in search of men to work in the Navy. They drag in some men who have just come off a whaling ship. Daniel Robson leads a riot to try and free the men, and he is arrested.