Sylvia's Lovers Part I

Sylvia's Lovers is Elizabeth Gaskell's fifth novel and she said it was a very sad story. 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 some characters who are very passionate and emotional, something akin to the characters in Wuthering Heights. Sylvia Robson, the heroine is the daughter of a farmer, who is semi literate and hot tempered. She herself has had almost no education, but 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. The book is set in the Napoleonic Wars and Sylvia 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. 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. Sylvia meets Charlie Kincaid, the whaler, and is attracted to him and 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 and take 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.