Until the Colours Fade

London England / New York: Book Club Associates, 1977. some small nicks to D/J. Until the Colours Fade is not only an immensely exciting novel, but a very vivid evocation of the Victorian world. At a time of industrial unrest in Rigton Bridge, a small mill-town outside Manchester, Tom Strickland, already commissioned to paint a portrait of Joseph Braithwaite, the town's richest mill-owner, hopes to win a still more valuable commission from Lord Goodchild - the area's largest landowner - to portray his lordship's beautiful wife, Helen. Instead through a chance meeting with Magnus Crawford - recently returned from military service abroad - Tom is drawn into a dangerous web of local hatreds and intrigues, intensified by the approaching election in Rigton Bridge, The Crawfords and the Goodchilds, old county familes, resent the self-made Braithwates, whose ownership of the mills has brought them not only wealth but political power. Savage riots on polling day set off a series of dramatic events. Helen is liberated from an unhappy marraige but faces a new dilemma. Where is she to turn? To Tom Strickland, to Magnus's reactionary brother, Charles, or to elderly Sir James Crawford, the distinguished Rear-Admiral? Her decision and subsequent rebellion arouse passions intense enough to survive the onset of the century's most brutal war. From the hustings of Lancashire the action moves first to London, then inexorably to the Crimea. Here, in scenes brilliantly, brutally described, the characters work out their destiny. Some perish, others survive. All, in their way achieve an honourable end. Fears and failure are not evaded, but in the end this book is a testament to hope and endurance. And everything in it, thanks to the author's meticulous attention to detail, is as real as if we had been there ourselves - towns, country houses, ships, battlefields. As with places, so too with people. Looking back, as one finishes the book, the characters have become so large in our minds that it is difficult to believe that they belong to fiction.(We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.). Book Club Edition. Cloth. Very Good/Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Hardback.