The Sweetest Thing

by Fiona Shaw

When Harriet, a working-class girl who, with her friend Mary has left her coastal job of collecting and gutting fish, stops on a bridge in her newly adopted home in York, she is approached by an upper-class gentleman. Samuel is a Quaker, a good soul, and a man interested in the new science of photography. He also collects photographs of working-class girls in their working clothes. Samuel invites the girls to come to his friend's studio. While Mary is almost instantly lost to the art of photography, Harriet, a sturdier sort, goes on to get a job in the Quaker-owned Wetherby's Chocolate Factory. She soon catches the eye of a young clerk who is one of the favourites of the owners and through him discovers the deadly rivalry between the chocolate-makers. Samuel is also taken with the young Harriet, though because of class, he watches her from afar, until his sister - 'mad Grace' locked away in an asylum - becomes part of their mutual story. Set in York in the early 1900s, The Sweetest Thing is a true Victorian novel with a large cast and wonderfully intriguing subplots, set at a moment of great social change.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Not to be confused with Fiona Shaw, the Irish-born stage & screen actress.

Fiona was born in London in 1964. Her place of birth is now a hospital broom cupboard and her first home was on a street later obliterated beneath a superstore off the Cromwell Rd. However, she passed most of her childhood as the eldest of three girls in a lovely and spacious family home near the Thames.

Fiona studied various literatures at the Universities of York and Sussex, finishing with a PhD on poet Elizabeth Bishop.

Since then, Fiona has written a memoir and four novels and done the habitual round of the novelist’s other jobs to help balance out her stubborn desire to write.

Fiona has worked as a Royal Literary Fund writing fellow at the University of York, 2007-2009, and is now working as RLF writing fellow in Sheffield University, attached to the Animal and Plant Sciences Department.

Living in York with her partner and two daughters, Fiona reads a great deal, cycles everywhere, grows vegetables with variable success and acquires more films than she ever gets around to watching. She is working on her fifth novel.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nineteenth century York was a hotbed of innovation and industry in confectionery and chocolate manufacture. Companies like Craven's, Terry's and Rowntree's were all developing new products and manufacturing methods and making tidy fortunes in the process. Rowntree's, like Cadbury's in Birmingham and Fry's in Bristol was owned by a prominent Quaker family and the fictional company of Wetherby's in The Sweetest Thing is clearly inspired by their history in York.
This is an engrossing and thought-provoking novel, shining a light on various aspects of Victorian femininity, but also on the tensions between faith and capitalism, business ethics and private life. Partly inspired by the fascinating life of Arthur Munby (related in Derek Hudson's excellent 1974 biography Munby: Man of two worlds, mentioned in Fiona Shaw's author's note at the end of the novel), there's a deeply involving strand of the novel that focuses on the Victorian middle classes' experience of and attitudes to, the look, smell and sounds of the working class women by whom they were surrounded. I'm so glad that I discovered this book - in the Amnesty bookshop in York. Where else?

[A.E. Walnofer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a truly beautiful and authentic book. The author did an excellent job of giving the main characters not only distinctive personalities, but also distinctive voices. The human interactions were believable and interesting. My only complaint is that there were a few times when I thought situations should be made a bit clearer. Even though I read over those spots a couple of times, I wasn't quite sure what had just taken place. However, that wouldn't keep me from recommending this book or from thoroughly enjoying it.

[Wendy Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many themes within the story. Womens working conditions, industrial espionage, insanity, Quaker morality. Too long by about 100 pages. Seemed to go nowhere then suddenly everything pulled together in a not very credible ending.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longer than it needed to be. A slow start but an insight into some curious Victorian characters.

[Sandie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve had this book for almost 20 years but had forgotten about it; having a clear out of my bookshelves I came across it and having spent the last year researching my family tree (mainly from York) I decided I ought to read it.

Would give it 3.5 stars if I could.

Chocolate Factory, working girls, Quakers, Women’s Suffrage, set in Victorian York and all highly researched, it was right up my tree and I finished it in 2 days. It’s written in quite a traditional way and doesn’t have the extraordinary touch that Michael Faber gives the Crimson Petal but I preferred her style to Sarah Waters, whom I admire but fail to connect with.