The ferryman

by David Rees

In the summer of 1832, the most dreaded disease of nineteenth century urban England, cholera, reached the city of Exeter. Oliver Sanders, a lad of sixteen, who earns his living by working one of the innumerable small boats that transport people across the River Exe, watches his father die of the disease. His mother, who is very frail, mentally and physically, loses her reason when this happens and is taken into the workhouse. Oliver is suddenly left alone in the family shop, for his elder brother Paul moves out to go and live in the house of the girl he is about to marry.
At first, Oliver is elated by his freedom from family ties, but he soon finds is own company depressing, despite the friendship he forms with the eccentric Matthew Cornish, one of the city's doctors, and gathers together an odd new family which is the source of extraordinary happiness and heartbreak.
The factual background of the story is drawn from a detailed account of the Exeter cholera epidemic written at the time by one of the city's doctors and the illustrations here reproduced are from his book.

167 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1977

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

David Rees was born in London in 1936, but lived most of his adult life in Devon, where for many years he taught English Literature at Exeter University and at California State University, San Jose. In 1984, he took early retirement in order to write full-time. Author of forty-two books, he is best known for his children's novel The Exeter Blitz, which in 1978 was awarded the Carnegie Medal (UK), and The Milkman's On His Way, which, having survived much absurd controversy in Parliament, is now regarded as something of a gay classic. He also won The Other Award (UK) for his historical novel The Green Bough of Liberty. David Rees died in 1993.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written, vivid account of the 1832 European cholera epidemic in Exeter, England. The background of the novel is based on a first person narrative written by a doctor in Exeter at the time of the epidemic. Several of the illustrations that appeared in his book are reprinted in The Ferryman. Many of the main characters of Rees's early novels are young people in a historical context. And although the target audience for these novels was probably the young adult readership, he pulls no punches in describing daily life of the times, including the sexual life of his characters. This is not done in a vulgar way, but very matter of fact as a valid part of his character's lives.