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The River
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
396 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1902
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About the author
Eden Phillpotts
549 books21 followersSee also: Harrington Hext
Eden Philpotts was an English novelist, short-story writer, and playwright with a particular interest in the county of Devon. His works include a cycle of 18 novels set in Dartmoor.
Eden Philpotts was an English novelist, short-story writer, and playwright with a particular interest in the county of Devon. His works include a cycle of 18 novels set in Dartmoor.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 14, 2009
Neither book nor author is likely to be well known. Its readers today may be like me, Dartmoor lovers. Researching a walk for this coming Sunday, I came upon The River, set in the exact area that I intend covering. What's more the book is freely available online (thank you America) so this is my first eBook ( http://www.archive.org/details/theriv... - the Flip Book format is great tho' the downloadable PDF is also good).
I've always dismissed Dartmoor fiction as being romantic twaddle, especially if pixies or larger than life characters of the Old Uncle Tom Cobbley variety are involved. Yet Phillpotts appears on Borges selection of books for his personal library ( http://www.amazon.com/Books-selected-... )which looks like a worthwhile read, and many of his books are in print.
The great thing about the eBook is that you can steal otherwise unproductive time for reading and perhaps with texts that would otherwise stay on the "to read" pile. And I suspect that an eBook that is not compelling will be discarded quicker than its traditional counterpart.
So is The River worth reading for the non-Dartmoor aficionado? I think so. The River is set towards the end of the nineteenth century when little happened in peoples’ lives outside of work and relationships. It portrays a community of farmers, labourers and workers in a small area of Dartmoor which has barely changed physically. The landscape is beautifully drawn and much of the dialog is in a dialect believed to be accurate for the time.
The main protagonist, Nicholas Edgecumbe, is a warrener, a keeper of rabbits, an activity that no longer takes place on the moor. A solitary worker, he is devout and honest. He is set against a young neighbour, Timothy Oldreive, the owner of his own farm who places himself as a gentleman but is lazy and inconstant. Nicholas catches Oldreive poaching his rabbits, humiliates him by taking back the rabbits and his gun and is later repaid when Oldreive fails to warn Nicholas of a danger he is heading towards.The two fall for the same girl and the following passage amusingly anticipates the wrong choices and conflict that will develop:
You should hear my gran'mother … She reckons as most pretty women have to pay a price too heavy for theer well-favoured outsides. They'm handicapped by it, for they never gets to larn the truth about men folk, … —not till too late that is. … Then another thing: brains an' beauty be strangers most always."
" You'm clever, an' so pretty as a picksher as well," declared Mary, but Hannah shook her head. " Neither one nor 'tother. …A maiden as knows that she'm fair trusts to it to win a happy life from it: but the chap that marries for a pretty face ban't the best fashion of husband. Often his love lasts just so long her looks—often not so long; often he grows cranky before the gilt be off the gingerbread, because he finds he's got to live the rest of his life with a fool. But him as marries a plain piece o' goods does it because he've found something hidden there before he takes her; an' if he'm clever enough to do that, an' cold enough not to put a lovely armful of woman afore everything else, he'll be well paid for his sense in the long run. All of which things my gran'mother have told me ; an' I believe 'em."
" Sure that's very comfortin' for the likes of me, what be the same as a saucepan—for use, not show," laughed Mary ; " but if you'm plain an' witless tu, 'tis a poor look out for 'e,"
An injury throws Nicholas into contact with Hannah and Mary. Mary forms a strong love for Nicholas whilst nursing him; Hannah steadily appreciates Nicholas’ strengths over Timothy’s weaknesses’ and when she senses his uncertain love for her decides “If the man did not wholly love her, he must be made to do so”. But Hannah’s mother favours Timothy and attempts to influence her choice. So disaster and recovery ensues amongst some strong set pieces.
After reading the book I walked the area and you can see some photos at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/david.e...#
I've always dismissed Dartmoor fiction as being romantic twaddle, especially if pixies or larger than life characters of the Old Uncle Tom Cobbley variety are involved. Yet Phillpotts appears on Borges selection of books for his personal library ( http://www.amazon.com/Books-selected-... )which looks like a worthwhile read, and many of his books are in print.
The great thing about the eBook is that you can steal otherwise unproductive time for reading and perhaps with texts that would otherwise stay on the "to read" pile. And I suspect that an eBook that is not compelling will be discarded quicker than its traditional counterpart.
So is The River worth reading for the non-Dartmoor aficionado? I think so. The River is set towards the end of the nineteenth century when little happened in peoples’ lives outside of work and relationships. It portrays a community of farmers, labourers and workers in a small area of Dartmoor which has barely changed physically. The landscape is beautifully drawn and much of the dialog is in a dialect believed to be accurate for the time.
The main protagonist, Nicholas Edgecumbe, is a warrener, a keeper of rabbits, an activity that no longer takes place on the moor. A solitary worker, he is devout and honest. He is set against a young neighbour, Timothy Oldreive, the owner of his own farm who places himself as a gentleman but is lazy and inconstant. Nicholas catches Oldreive poaching his rabbits, humiliates him by taking back the rabbits and his gun and is later repaid when Oldreive fails to warn Nicholas of a danger he is heading towards.The two fall for the same girl and the following passage amusingly anticipates the wrong choices and conflict that will develop:
You should hear my gran'mother … She reckons as most pretty women have to pay a price too heavy for theer well-favoured outsides. They'm handicapped by it, for they never gets to larn the truth about men folk, … —not till too late that is. … Then another thing: brains an' beauty be strangers most always."
" You'm clever, an' so pretty as a picksher as well," declared Mary, but Hannah shook her head. " Neither one nor 'tother. …A maiden as knows that she'm fair trusts to it to win a happy life from it: but the chap that marries for a pretty face ban't the best fashion of husband. Often his love lasts just so long her looks—often not so long; often he grows cranky before the gilt be off the gingerbread, because he finds he's got to live the rest of his life with a fool. But him as marries a plain piece o' goods does it because he've found something hidden there before he takes her; an' if he'm clever enough to do that, an' cold enough not to put a lovely armful of woman afore everything else, he'll be well paid for his sense in the long run. All of which things my gran'mother have told me ; an' I believe 'em."
" Sure that's very comfortin' for the likes of me, what be the same as a saucepan—for use, not show," laughed Mary ; " but if you'm plain an' witless tu, 'tis a poor look out for 'e,"
An injury throws Nicholas into contact with Hannah and Mary. Mary forms a strong love for Nicholas whilst nursing him; Hannah steadily appreciates Nicholas’ strengths over Timothy’s weaknesses’ and when she senses his uncertain love for her decides “If the man did not wholly love her, he must be made to do so”. But Hannah’s mother favours Timothy and attempts to influence her choice. So disaster and recovery ensues amongst some strong set pieces.
After reading the book I walked the area and you can see some photos at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/david.e...#
April 29, 2015
Nicholas Edgecombe is a poor warrener, a good and simple man who lives alone in quiet isolation near Wistman's Wood on Dartmoor with only a Bible for company, from which he projects the ancient events from his mind's eye onto the land on which he lives and works..
Timothy Oldreive is a dissolute yet handsome young gentleman farmer, wasting away his father's inheritance due to laziness and self-indulgence.
The two come into conflict over the affections of Hannah Bradridge, a barmaid and beauty who attracts them both in their own way.
This is the second novel of Phillpott's that I have read recently after stumbling across him quite by accident, and I can see him increasingly becoming one of my favorite author's over the years to come.
Devon is his domain much as Wessex was Hardy's, and they both reverence the implacable hand of Fate in human affairs, though Phillpott has much the lighter touch.
The lover's try in vain to escape their essential characters against a backdrop of local gossip and interference, well intentioned or not, as Phillpott creates a pleasing crew of supporting rustics with which to people his drama, such as Merryweather Chugg, a water bailiff and Wesleyan, and Sorrow Scobhull, a mournful labourer convinced that he is fated to die drowned in the river Dart.
It's not without faults. The principle players, though all born and bred in this out of the way portion of the West Country, seem almost to have just met each other at the start of the story; and the act of secret betrayal that ends the first part of the story struck me as psychologically unlikely on the part of one of the co-betrayers.
But these are minor complaints compared to the overall charm of the thing. The funny thing is, I have never even been to Devon, let alone Dartmoor, yet I feel I know the place now, so intimately does Phillpott present its people and places.
Lovely.
Timothy Oldreive is a dissolute yet handsome young gentleman farmer, wasting away his father's inheritance due to laziness and self-indulgence.
The two come into conflict over the affections of Hannah Bradridge, a barmaid and beauty who attracts them both in their own way.
This is the second novel of Phillpott's that I have read recently after stumbling across him quite by accident, and I can see him increasingly becoming one of my favorite author's over the years to come.
Devon is his domain much as Wessex was Hardy's, and they both reverence the implacable hand of Fate in human affairs, though Phillpott has much the lighter touch.
The lover's try in vain to escape their essential characters against a backdrop of local gossip and interference, well intentioned or not, as Phillpott creates a pleasing crew of supporting rustics with which to people his drama, such as Merryweather Chugg, a water bailiff and Wesleyan, and Sorrow Scobhull, a mournful labourer convinced that he is fated to die drowned in the river Dart.
It's not without faults. The principle players, though all born and bred in this out of the way portion of the West Country, seem almost to have just met each other at the start of the story; and the act of secret betrayal that ends the first part of the story struck me as psychologically unlikely on the part of one of the co-betrayers.
But these are minor complaints compared to the overall charm of the thing. The funny thing is, I have never even been to Devon, let alone Dartmoor, yet I feel I know the place now, so intimately does Phillpott present its people and places.
Lovely.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews