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    Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall, 1788-1790
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    Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall, 1788-1790
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    Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall, 1788-1790
    Ebook552 pages9 hours

    Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall, 1788-1790

    By Winston Graham

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    NOW A MASTERPIECE™ SERIES ON PBS®

    The second novel in the gripping Poldark Saga, a historical fiction series following the life and love of the Poldark family, perfect for fans of Downton Abbey and Outlander.

    In the enchanting second novel in Winston Graham's beloved Poldark series, Demelza Carne, an impoverished miner's daughter, rescued by Ross Poldark from a fairground brawl, now happily finds herself his wife. But these historic and turbulent years put their romance to the test.

    As Ross launches into a bitter struggle for the right of the mining communities, Demelza's efforts to adapt to the ways of the gentry (and her husband) challenge her to rethink everything. When tragedy strikes and sows the seeds of rivalry between Ross and the powerful George Warleggan, will Demelza manage to bridge their differences before they destroy her marriage and her chance at happiness?

    Amid the turbulent history of 18th century England, Demelza continues the Poldark family saga and sweeps readers into one of the greatest historical romances of all time.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateJun 1, 2010
    ISBN9781402254253
    Unavailable
    Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall, 1788-1790
    Author

    Winston Graham

    Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the series of historical novels about the Poldarks. Graham was born in Manchester in 1908, but moved to Perranporth, Cornwall when he was seventeen. His first novel, The House with the Stained Glass Windows was published in 1933. His first 'Poldark' novel, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945, and was followed by eleven further titles, the last of which, Bella Poldark, came out in 2002. The novels were set in Cornwall, especially in and around Perranporth, where Graham spent much of his life, and were made into a BBC television series in the 1970s. It was so successful that vicars moved or cancelled church services rather than try to hold them when Poldark was showing. The BBC started broadcasting another successful Poldark series in 2015, starring Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson. Aside from the Poldark series, Graham's most successful work was Marnie, a thriller which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964. Hitchcock had originally hoped that Grace Kelly would return to films to play the lead and she had agreed in principle, but the plan failed when the principality of Monaco realised that the heroine was a thief and sexually repressed. The leads were eventually taken by Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Five of Graham's other books were filmed, including The Walking Stick, Night Without Stars and Take My Life. Graham wrote a history of the Spanish Armadas and an historical novel, The Grove of Eagles, based in that period. He was also an accomplished writer of suspense novels. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published by Macmillan. He had completed work on it just weeks before he died in July 2003. Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1983 was honoured with the OBE.

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    Reviews for Demelza

    4.5/5

    21 ratings17 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I continue to enjoy the saga of the Poldarks of Cornwall. Demelza and Ross now have a daughter, Julia. Ross's rebellious nature continues to express itself, and when there is a shipwreck, he helps the starving miners salvage the cargo, which will help feed them through the winter. Enmity continues to grow between Ross and the Warleggans. The antics of Prudie and Jud continue to provide comic relief, and the story of Verity and Blamey continues. A new character and storyline is introduced with Dwight Enys, a young doctor schooled in the most modern medical science, who seeks to study and treat the ills of the miners.The series only gets better. Highly recommended.4 stars
    • 5/5
      Demelza is one of my most favorite Poldark characters. Her honesty and unwavering love toward Ross is tested in ways I cannot imagine, yet Demelza displays the fortitude of a miner's daughter with the class of the gentry she has become. Another win for Graham, this book easily sent me running for book three.
    • 5/5
      In this, the second novel in the Poldark series, the author has created real people and real situations, which draw you in and won't release you until the last page. I find myself caring for these fictional characters, wanting to reach through the cover to touch them. Set in Cornwall in the late 1700's, the descriptions of the countryside and dwellings ring true, yet do not bog down the story, but complement it. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      The second in the Poldark series by Winston Graham....only 10 more to go...looks like I will be spending the summer in 17th century England with the Poldark family.
    • 4/5
       I finally worked my way through this lovely second in the Poldark series. I initially started it and just sort of dragged along (not the book's fault I don't think - I think I was just unmotivated). Once I dedicated some time to put my full focus on this book, I blew through! I love how it captures the beauty of Cornwall, the characters, the time period, and the overall atmosphere. Looking forward to reading the next one!
    • 4/5
      What a fantastic series of books. The first, “Ross Poldark,” was a wonderful smooth read. I was afraid the quality would drop with the second one, “Demelza,” but fortunately I was wrong. Except from some lengthy descriptions of the business meetings, everything else was a pleasure to read. The end is very moving and Graham does an incredible job with words. Both the 1975 nor the 2015 series were able to capture the story, although the new version gets closer. Physically, only both actors who played Poldark are more likely the book character. The main changes and the more damaging done to Graham story, I think, involve the creation of the smelting company, the Carnmore Copper Company, that has been altered to be Ross’ initiative. Also the comic element present in the books do not make a complete appearance on the screen, which is a loss. Again, a fantastic read, highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      As with book 1 this one is similar to the tv series, but not exactly. It takes you almost to the end of season 1.
    • 5/5
      One of the reasons I wanted to read this series is to see how it differs from the show and to compare and contrast them. This book was not a let down (as if it ever could have been!) The story lines were engaging, the writing was beautiful, and the characters will wrench your heart out. A wonderful addition to this series and I can't wait to see what book three has to offer! I would recommend this book. 5 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      The Poldark novels are always a joy to come back to. All the drama and community of a soap opera, but with believable characters; more romance than anything turned out by Harlequin or Mills and Boon, portraying passion and comfort, heroism and humanity, in equal measure; and a host of lively personalities who will quickly and firmly win the following of every reader. The only difficulty is tackling all twelve novels in the series at once - this time, I aim to succeed! Following on from Ross' marriage to Demelza in the first book, Demelza opens with the birth of the Poldarks' first child in 1789. They seem happy together, with Demelza adjusting to her new place in society, and Ross beginning to appreciate his wife's vivacity and open nature. The title character is but one narrative thread, however, weaving into the lives of the gentry and mining communities of west Cornwall. Verity and her lost love are reunited, Ross risks all in a speculative business venture, Jinny Carter faces further hardship, Mark Daniel and his wayward new wife supply the scandal, and tragedy strikes at the heart of Nampara. There are even two shipwrecks thrown in for good measure! And in the rare moments of calm, Winston Graham's emotive writing fits every mood from wry humour (Jud and Francis) to black misery (the final chapters). Graham also paints a truly evocative, living portrait of the Cornish landscape, so that even land-locked readers like myself can hear the waves crashing in the cove and taste the salt on the air!
    • 4/5
      This 1970s version of the cover of Winston Graham's second Poldark novel, Demelza, keeps cracking me up. I wouldn't have touched it in a million years, with its emphasis on lustiness and defiant love and whatnot. I would though, have been missing out.

      As I observed recently, I was sold on the idea of reading these by the BBC TV adaptation (America's Grandest New TV Saga the little green label on this book cover says), but even so was not quite prepared for how much I would like these books, like Graham's writing, like the characters and their world.

      It's a small world, is late 18th Century Cornwall, populated by struggling tin and copper miners, struggling farmers and the odd ridiculous bastion of Georgian gentility, but it feels the effects of the wider world in its own way, as last novel showed us in the hard homecoming of Captain Ross Poldark after Britain's loss of its American colonies, and this one shows us in its tiny echoes of the nascent French Revolution happening just across the water from its wind-and sea-swept shores -- mostly in the form of food riots in the bigger towns, but still, rumblings all the same.

      But for our purposes, the biggest stirring is still Ross's decision to marry his kitchen wench Demelza, who has turned out to be the perfect wife for him and, in her own novel here, to be a fascinating character all on her own. Unbelievably happy in her marriage and motherhood, she thinks everybody should be so, and so a lot of the plot of Demelza spins out from her efforts to secure her kind of happiness for Ross's cousin Verity, long separated from her man by family and social disapproval of his past as a wife-beater, violent drunk and all-around less-than-ideal prospect for any daughter. But it's true love! Can't anyone see it but Demelza? No, apparently not, so off she goes on her errand, with surprising and far-reaching results.

      For while Demelza is off match-making, Ross is busy trying to do his bit as a social reformer, trying to keep his workers' offspring out of trouble, their livelihood from going belly-up, and to keep himself from decking every ponce in a powdered wig who winks at his wife, cheats him at cards, or outmaneuvers him in business. Oh, and to do all of this mostly in secrecy, which is hard to do in a small world with a busybody wife running around playing cupid and touching off family and social drama.

      And again, there are lots of lovely moments, poignant and well crafted, like when the great old Grambler mine, on which the Poldark fortune seems largely to have originally been built, closes down and the gentlemen gather around the huge steam pumps that keep its galleries more or less clear of water to watch their last ups and downs and Ross's cousin Francis chalks the word "Resurgam" ("I shall rise again") on the side of the biggest of them to express the hope that someday what's still down in the Grambler will be economically worth digging for again. I hope it will, I do! But those darn Warleggans, the upstart banking family who are always on the verge of becoming the Poldarks' nemesis but never quite manifest as same, seem destined to keep copper prices low and the mine owners and their employees poor and dependent, those bastards!

      Thrown into the mix is a High Romantic sub-plot involving a fancy lass who marries an honest, big-but-dim mining man and regrets it to the ruin of, well, just about everybody in some fashion or another. It's this sub-plot that raises a lot of modern eyebrows, because of course it all ends tragically, but then, oh, what's this? All of these characters we have come to love and sympathize with are loving and sympathizing the guy who killed his wife! To quite an extraordinary degree. Because the fancy lass had it coming, I guess? Um.

      So no, I didn't like that bit either, but such has been the way of the world. If there's one thing a reader of novels learns over and over again, it sure do suck to be a girl. But then again, it mostly seems to suck to be a guy, too, though the old saw about being laughed at versus being murdered still comes to mind. Or at least until everybody is up against bigger problems, like rampant deadly disease, economic ruin and shipwrecks with pickings for all to fight over!

      ALL THE MELODRAMA.
    • 4/5
      This review will contain spoilers for Ross Poldark. Ye be warned!In her rise from kitchen maid to Ross's wife, Demelza finds herself in a role for which her previous life has left her ill-prepared. Despite this, she and Ross settle into the early days of wedded bliss easily and with the arrival of their daughter, Julia, life at Nampara is idyllic. But outside of their small family circle there are larger forces that threaten Ross's mining interests and their domestic peace. In addition, Demelza's interest in Verity's star-crossed relationship with ship captain, Andrew Blamey, may change relations between Ross and Demelza and the two branches of the Poldark family tree forever.Still as engrossing as ever, it is lovely to watch Demelza grow into her role as the lady of manor. While I knew the arc that was coming in this novel, I still found it compulsively readable and was keenly interested in the smaller sub-plots that didn't appear in the television adaptation. I'm eagerly looking forward to continuing to follow Ross and Demelza's journey in the rest of the series.
    • 5/5
      I recently read Winston Graham’s POLDARK and DEMELZA. These titles are part of a series written by Mr. Graham about a Cornish family spanning the years 1783-1820.Ross Poldark returns home to Cornwall after a 2 year stint in the British Army fighting in the ‘colonies’ during the American War of Independence. He returns home to his father’s death; an estate in a ruined state; his ‘intended’, Elizabeth, engaged to his cousin, Francis; a depressed economy and poverty for the miners, fishermen and farmers of the region; and rumors of his own demise in America.The story includes copper mining, unethical banking and politics, marrying, family strife, smuggling, poaching, class inequalities, the natural beauty of Cornwall, elopement, epidemic, death, treachery, deceit, duels and sea captains.The books subtlely overpower your life. You are totally engaged in the lives, the struggles, the passions of these characters.I was first aware of this series in the 1970s. I was reading Daphne du Maurier who used Cornwall as a backdrop to several of her brilliant novels. Winston Graham was mentioned in several book lists as another excellent Cornish author.Before I read any of Mr. Graham’s novels, his first 4 Poldark novels were adapted as a BBC TV series running from 1975 to 1977. Masterpiece Theatre broadcast the series in the U.S. in 1976 through 1978. I fell immediately in love - with Cornwall, with Ross Poldark (and with Robin Ellis, the actor who portrayed Ross Poldark), with Demelza Carne, Verity and all the characters. (Well, not the Warleggans!)There is presently a fresh production of the Poldark saga on the BBC and Masterpiece Classic in the U.S. It is just as stunning as the first and I find myself falling in love all over again.Winston Graham lived in Cornwall for 30+ years and his historical Poldark series presents (quite accurately) the wildly fluctuating economic fortunes of the region. Mr. Graham wrote 12 Poldark novels over a span of 40+ years, the last title published in 2002, a year before his death. He wrote many other novels, plays and short stories.His novels are a fantastic read and I plan a Poldark reading marathon this winter.Thank you, Mr. Graham, the BBC and Masterpiece Theatre.
    • 3/5
      Sequel to 'Ross Poldark'. Demelza settles into married life and makes friends with her cousin. Readable and fairly enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      *SPOILER ALERT*Like his first in the Poldark series, Graham again delivers a fascinating novel of late 18th century life in the Cornwall, England region. This time we get more of Demelza's perspective, her inner life, and her growing maturity and confidence as miner's daughter married into a noble family. All the characters introduced in book one are continued here with several plot lines expertly interwoven throughout the novel's expanse. So much happens to Demelza, Ross, Verity- Ross' cousin, and the others, chapters shifting between Demelza's domestic life with new baby Julia and her marriage to Ross, Verity's life (the dedicated, faithful spinster sister to Francis, his wife Elizabeth and little Geoffrey, as well as the rest of the household), the emerging economics of copper and tin mining, Ross' newly re-opened mine, and his strenuos efforts to help himself and fellow mining owners to create their own smeltering company, and the social complexities and intrigues of the upstart, avaricious Warleggans, Francis Poldark, and the other families, both great and humble, in the towns and villages of the Poldark home. Graham provides subtle counterpoints to Ross' and Demelza's happy marriage to that of the stolid, uneducated Mark Daniel and his unstable, promiscious young wife, Keren, to Verity's forbidden romance to the sea captain Blamey, to the sad demise of Ross' childhood friend Jim Carter, and long suffering wife Jinnny, as he wastes away in a deathtrap of a regional prison. The story's two bookends: Ross' and Demelza's first child's birth and her unexpected death near the end illustrates the bitter disappointments Ross must suffer in this up and down year: his own cousin Francis' treachery in business matters and false accusations, his grief over the ailing Jim's death, his dismay over Demelza's secret doings to help his cousin Verity marry Blamey; and then his tiny daughter's death - is there anything more poignantly written than the country village's winter funeral scene of little Julia Poldark, the noble and commonfolk alike thronging to the ceremony (a small comfort and surprise to the stunned Ross), the white coffin carried by the young girl pallbearers, all dressed in white, the silence between the impromptu singing of the psalms? *sigh* And just when we readers cannot stand any more sadness - Graham writes so movingly of the fierce despair and numbing grief of both Demelza and Ross- he provides an amazing shipwreck chapter, not one but two ships breaking up in the dangerous gale and terrible tides near Hendrawna Beach, and the dramatic looting, drownings, and grateful scavangeing of the locals, half starving in the bitter winter of 1790. Here too he provides a fitting demise for one of the story's villians and the recovery of Ross' better nature, his sense of decency and care as he invites the captain and his passengers to their home. I can't wait to read the next book, and like every good saga, I so want to know more about all these characters and their lives!!
    • 4/5
      The second book in the Poldark series focuses on Ross' wife, Demelza, during the years of 1788-1790. There's lots of drama related to Ross' mining operations, a murder committed by a good friend, the demise of Ross' cousin Francis and the birth of their first child. Book 3 will move through the years of 1790-1791 and I look forward to seeing what happens next.
    • 3/5
      It's amazing how much time you can find to read when travelling on business. One return trip to Germany sees this finished. The concentrated period of reading worked well as it gives time to get swept up in this. It covers a relatively short period of time and Demelza is the pivot upon whi9ch the story turns. At times she is headstrong, at times very dedicated and loyal. the social history element makes the background against which this is set terribly bleak. The french revolution is rumbling over the channel, there are riots and the miners in the district are going hungry. The rich are not, of course. Ross & Demelza are an odd couple in some ways, coming across this class divide form different sides and now at home in neither world entirely. It has the tine of a soap opera at times, with much scandal and such goings on. Worthwhile read.
    • 5/5
      The second book in the series - not quite sure why it's entitled Demelza as I think it has more of Ross - but it is a continuation of her story and growth with Ross, the developments of the time - mining, removing the ores, banking, shipwrecks and the troubles of the time in the closenet communities. Plague, hunger etc.