Poldark Saga - Winston Graham discussion
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PAGES DELETED FROM DEMELZA PART ONE
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ANN agree, it is a find and we have the relationship between Mark and Keren fleshed out and a better understanding of Mark's personality...
It is so interesting to find out that first editions had a few more pages. It does tell us more of Mark and Keren. That was helpful. Thank you for posting it and to JoyLynne for the typing. The Poldark books were written over such a large time period. It is very interesting and explains why some of the later books are so different.
I didn't realize the first editions had more pages. If the "Warleggan" was first pub. in 1953 and then2008 is that with less pages. Would that be all the 12 books or a few. I am now watching Poldark Series one on PBS (again) catching up for Series 5 should be shown in the fall USA. I read awhile ago that there could a series 6 but different actors. This would not be the same, spoil the Drama.
So is it possible that there are deleted pages from #1 Ross Poldark? And if so, has it been shown here in Goodreads and I just don't see it? I have been holding off reading the books because I knew there were missing pages in the first few books, but couldn't find out what they were (and I can't afford to buy first editions). Thank you, Team Goodreads for understanding my post!
There is approximately 12% of the first edition Ward Lock Ross Poldark missing from the books published later by different publishers and approximately 14% missing from Demelza.
A message to Cas. You should start reading the books even if there are missing passages. The books are that good! You can fill in later if you find a source for the missing pages. Enjoy what you can now.
Chris wrote: "A message to Cas. You should start reading the books even if there are missing passages. The books are that good! You can fill in later if you find a source for the missing pages. Enjoy what you ca..."Thank you Chris for your kind and thoughtful comments. A reason for 'waiting' was that I am also reading books from two other series that I am finishing up. So I do have the time to 'wait'. Trust me, as soon as either one is finished, I will be jumping into Poldark! Your nudge certainly helped. Sadly looking forward to the last season of the show. Cas
The Power of Poldark
13 hrs ·
We have mentioned before that several chapters go missing from the first editions....we hope you enjoy these missing chapters that those of you without first editions will not have seen before...taken from Demelza, written by Winston Graham and typed up by JoyLynne...
This is from the first Ward Lock edition in 1946. It follows the chapter on the second christening.
CHAPTER SIX
AT Grambler the players gave The Miner's Revenge, a play specially written by a Cornishman, Richard Carthew. There had been a good deal of summer fever of late; but as Otway himself and Tupper the comedian paraded Sawle and Grambler during the morning and afternoon with a drum and trumpet, announcing the performance, they attracted a crowded house. Some of the people who had seen them in Nampara library walked over to see this new play. Among them Mark Daniel sat unmoving throughout the performance, with no expression on his lean sallow face and no sign of what he thought or felt.
Zacky Martin went too, although his wife disapproved of plays and playgoers. Zacky always read the column about the theatre in the newspaper Ross lent him. He took Jinny because she was still fretting about Jim and he thought the play-acting would take their minds off things.
For his own part he had little to complain of, for he had good health and enough coming in to feed his large family. But he knew there was a quarterly meeting of the shareholders of Grambler that evening, and he had a fair notion of what was likely to be talked of.
The Aaron Otway players did their best to make him forget his worries. Their scenery was no more than at Nampara, their costumes as threadbare; so much was left to the good will and imagination of the audience. But if hard work, vigour and versatility could make up for other lacks, the The Miner's Revenge was a good performance.
The miners were far quieter than the ordinary village or small town attendance, and sharper to applaud the good work, more tolerant of the bad. At the end they stood up and sang 'God Save the King,' which was still very popular for its tune, and dispersed quietly, going off home in the early darkness in groups or trickling in twos and threes into the nearest cottage with red blinds to drink and talk of what they had seen. A model audience as Otway said.
Keren, reacting after the nervous effort of the evening, disputed this petulantly. The audience, she said, had been made up of oafs and half-wits. They had laughed in the wrong places and had failed to applaud her speech at the end of the third act. She was, she said, tired of everything to do with the stage, bored with this travelling nomad life, wasting good oratory on fools and country bumkins, eating when you could and starving when you couldn't. She'd as lief belong to a travelling fair, to a menagerie, as be at the beck and call of such as came to their shows.
"Now , now, little chuckie," said Otway, with his mouth full of rabbit pasty. "Such croaking does not become you. We have a good month of business and you twist your little mouth till it a crescent moon before the rain. It ill marks anyone to be discontented with good fortune. You can't be Mrs. Siddons in a night, y'know."
"No, nor never will be if I stay in these wild places among the savages and the tin. Who will see me here who knows what acting is?" "I will," said Tupper satirically, "an' you've plenty to learn yet, even from old rub-outs like us."
Keren ignored him and got up. She yawned with studied grace, aware of some locals still grouped at the other end of the shed watching the players eat, as they would bears at a fair.
"It's hot in here. I mislike stale breath. It spoils one's appetite."
"Not," said Tupper, still vindictive, "not that my little sucker needs much of tooition in the lesser arts. Such, f'r instance, as stealing money that's been lost fair and square. Or cheating with the deuce when you still have the nine. Or makin' up to them as has what you happens to want. All woman-like and girlish, 0' course. Thinkin' no one can fist you. Well, maybe next time you'l find you're mistook----"
"Shut up!" She turned on him and would have snatched a knife from the table, but Otway cought her hand and rose between them. "And you're on his side!" she said in a whisper. "Leave me alone, you fat old pig, you!"
She turned and swept out of the shed, followed by Tupper's laughter.
Outside it was nearly dark; not so fine a night as last; a thin wind scavenged among the sheds and the rubble and the stone engine-houses. Two hundred yards away was the largest of the two engines, clanging and thumping and sucking: the beat of it had been felt all through their play, making the candles shiver. Beyond now could be heard the clatter of are stamps leading down the valley to Sawle. There were lights here and there about the mine, but the scene was foreign to her and the wind had an edge on it. She shivered and pulled her flimsy bodice up at the neck. A shadow moved beside her.
She jumped away like a nervous foal rearing ready to bolt. But something reminded her of last night and she paused. "You?"
"I was thur," said Mark. "Did you see me thur?"
"Yes," she said untruthfully, "I was looking out for you."
"By the door. I thought I saw ye look."
"Yes.... By the door."
There was a pause. They had nothing to say to each other.
She was not attracted to him--he was too uncouth--but something in his height and great breadth of shoulder put him out of the ordinary run. It appealed to her instincts. She was not vicious hut she was discontented and bored.
"I saw that red kerchief," she said.
He fingered it. "That's the one I won wrestlin'."
"It's a pretty one," she said, thinking to please him.
"Would ye like it?"
She didn't reply, but watched him slip it off his neck and hold it out to her. Their hands touched when she took it from him, and she could tell that he was powerfully moved. And she was the cause of it. Her discontent began to go. If she could sway this man why couldn't she some day sway all London?
Imperiously she handed it back.
"Put it on for me," she commanded.
"...On you?"
She nodded, and he slid the scarf fumblingly, clumsily round her neck. Like a great tamed animal doing some difficult delicate trick. She smothered a giggle at the thought. She could feel him breathing on her hair and could smell the rough earthy smell of his clothing. It was warm and not unpleasant, the smell of this animal.
Waves of excitement, of tension were running through it, trying to infect her. That wasn't likely!
He dropped his hands suddenly as if they had been burned and stepped back half a pace. "There .... "
She fingered the scarf. "We're going on to St. Ann's to-morrow. After that Illuggan, if the fever isn't bad."
"I'll be thur."
"After that Redruth again."
"Where do ee live?" he said. "Don't ye live somewhere?"
"No. Isn't a caravan good enough?"
"Don't ye ever get tired for a home?"
"Never had one. Not a proper one."
They listened a moment to the noises of the mine.
"This where you work?" she said.
"Yes. Sixty fathom below grass."
"What d' you do; dig for tin?"
"Copper. On a pitch. I always work on tribute. Tis betterer'n tut-work for them as d'know their job. I never want for nothing."
She looked at him with slightly quickened interest. She could not understand the jargon of the mines, but she took in the last remark. They had been slowly moving away from the shed where the other actors were eating and away from the noise of the big engine. It did not occur to her to think she might be in any danger from this uncouth man. She did not know his reputation, but she was confident of being able to take care of herself.
She said: "Was I pretty to-night?"
"Handsome you was," he answered in a low hard voice.
"Why d'you think I'm pretty? What's pretty about me? Tell me."
"Everything ... Nothing that warn't." He struggled with his tongue. "All the looks of your face."
She waited hopefully. "What's your name?"
"Daniel...Mark Daniel."
"Daniel Mark Daniel?" She tittered.
He tried to explain, but she was in the mood to tease.
"And are you fond of the the-atre, Daniel Mark Daniel?"
"I never been but once before. Tesn't the the-atre .... "
"Oh," she said, "so it is me."
He nodded grimly. Her fancy for going straight to the root of things found an echo in his heart.
"Are you Captain of the mine?" she asked.
"I aren't much a one for words," he said. "Tedn't my way to play around wi' fancy sayings. When I saw you last night I've not thought of nothing else besides.""Well, what's that to me?"
He stopped and looked at her in the darkness.
"I can't say more'n I've the tongue for."
She laughed. "I've a notion to be going back. I've a pie to finish--if that thief Tupper hasn't gobbled it."
"Nay, wait." He began to fumble at the leather belt round his waist. "I brought somethin' 'ere for ee."
She watched, interested now while he took out a little cotton bag tied at the top with cord. It was no bigger than a baby's fist, but it clinked as he put it into her hand.
She untied the top and saw that inside were silver coins.
"Where d'you get this?" she asked, startled.
"Tis mine. I'm giving it to you."
She stared at him, sobered at last, impressed at last, unable to understand.
"What for?"
"I never been the marryin' kind. But that's what I've the thought for now."
He waited, obstinately, for her laughter; but it did not come. He would have had it in full three minutes ago, but the tiny bag of silver was a weight in her palm. She did not know that Mark had lived in his father's cottage all his life and only paid for his own vituals, that he had worked with consistent skill and good luck on his own pitch since he was fourteen, sometimes making as much as fifty or sixty shillings a month, that he had never lost a day from illness or accident, had never spent an unnecessary penny, and had often won money prizes for wrestling. All she knew was that this man offered her casually in a bag ten times what she could hope to earn in the most successful week.
This convinced her of nothing; but it gave him a quite different standing. That it was also the first time any man had asked her to marry him--and meant it--she also realized. This might have added to her amusement, but the little bag was heavy in her palm.
"I didn't know miners was rich," she said.
"Don't ye ever want for a home?" he asked. "I'd build you a home wi' my own 'ands."
"Where's the money comin' from if you give me your silver?"
"There's more at home. I aren't a spending man." He put his big hand on her wrist a moment. "Look--"
She slipped away, seeming to dissolve at his touch.
"Not so sharp! How dare you! I wouldn't think on it! What, me to leave the stage! Here, take your money!"
He did not see that she had not extended her hand.
"Sleep on it," he urged grimly. "Keep the silver any'ow. Tes no more'n you desarve. I'll be thur at St. Ann's to-morrow night, watchin' for ee."
"I don't know as I shall look for you," she said haughtily.
"Meet me after. Tell me what ye've bought wi' the silver."
She giggled uncertainly as at an obscure joke, her fine teeth glistening. Then she tossed her head and ran back to the shed where the others were eating. At the door she turned to see if he had followed her. But he had gone. She hid the purse inside her skirt, then she burst in ready even to forgive Tupper the loss of his pennies.