Jaline's Reviews > Ross Poldark

There are so many outstanding qualities within this first novel in a series of twelve. Thank you to Goodreads friend Candi for first introducing me to this series with her wonderful reviews. Thank you, too, for the inspiration from Goodreads friend Diane, who decided last year to read this series at the rate of one per month and whose reviews were a monthly reminder to finally start reading this series. I loved the idea of one per month for the entire year, and it became one of my first personal reading goals for 2019.

This novel was first published in 1945 and the last novel of this series was published in 2002. I did not know that this series began so many years ago: it is as fresh and feels as new as if it had been written yesterday. The writing is outstanding in all ways: rich in historical fact, dynamic characters, beautifully descriptive and atmospheric, and rich in its storyline of family, culture, ventures, and adventures.

The novel covers the period of time in Cornwall from 1783 to 1787. It is the time when copper mines and tin mines accounted for a large proportion of the wealth for those in the upper social classes, while fishing, working in the mines, and servitude were the primary occupations of the lower classes. Both classes have a dark side to their ‘occupations’, too. The wealthy indulged themselves in excesses of food and drink (to the detriment of their health) as well as gambling and affairs. The poorer folks’ dark side is more desperate: largely poaching and petty theft to feed hungry bodies.

There is a huge cast of characters in this novel, yet they are introduced so smoothly and with such a strong imprint of their personalities that I ‘knew’ them immediately and intimately from the beginning.

The Poldark family has two branches: (1) Elder brother Charles, the inheritor and caretaker of the ancient family’s lands and mines, his children Francis and Verity, and (2) Younger brother Joshua who dies early, leaving his son Ross the small farm and holdings that Ross returns to after his service in the War of Independence in America. This novel traces the time of transition when control and responsibility pass from the older generation to the younger.

I was especially fascinated with Cornwall as the setting for this novel because it was a part of England that I was particularly drawn to many years ago when I spent a month exploring the English southwest. This book contains a richness of information about the Cornish countryside, its people, and its even more ancient history - all liberally sprinkled throughout the story.

As a family saga, this first of the series sets a tone of time and place that finds me eagerly looking forward to the second novel next month.