South Riding - an English landscape

[Francis Muir]

I have just finished Winifred Holtby's magnum opus of Subject title.
Holtby's name came to me when, in a minor thread, someone mentioned the
Royal Society of Literature, and on examining their web-site I found
they had offered an Annual Holtby Prize for rural genre novels or some
such title. In a way anything can be called genre, even Zeleny's
non-genre "literature" novels are really as distinctive a genre as any
other. In Holtby's case it seems unfairly demeaning to call *South
Riding* a rustic genre book; a better description would be "Modern
Middlemarch" with "modern" dating it to the early Thirties of the
century just past. Indeed, if you liked *Middlemarch* then *South
Riding* is for you, and if you didn't read it but are vaguely Feminist
and Socialist, then *SR* is also for you. Nicely written and enough
surprises in the writing to keep things interesting.

This snippet from an Amazon review is informative:

" One other major character Mrs. Beddows, the local councilwoman, was
based on Holtby's mother who was the first alderwoman elected in
Yorkshire, thru her eyes we are made aware of Holtby's belief that when
local government puts the needs of their citizens before personal gain,
the community benefits and contributes more effectively to the inner
workings of a national or global society. Mrs. Holtby was scandalized by
South Riding and tried to have it suppressed, fortunately she was not
her daughter's literary executrix and to her dismay it was published.
The political content was so accurate that Mrs. Holtby resigned."