Why a Booktrail?
1900,1901: A perfect evocation of late Victorian Norfolk, a fine-spun tale of love and learning in an age of seismic change
The Sitter
What you need to know before your trail
An adolescent baker’s boy catches sight of beautiful Rosie stepping off the train at dusk in a village built to serve a vast railway maintenance hub known as The Works. The boy lives by the rhythm of breadmaking, Bible-reading and the sound of trains. Rosie is an artist’s model with a broken heart, without money or status but blessed with a talent for drawing and seductive beauty. She has been bruised by a relationship with a cartoonist in Kensington who concealed his passion for photographic erotica. Is she the victim of abuse or a thoughtless siren?
Locations
Reset- England - Norfolk
- A: Melton Constable
- B: Cromer Pier
- C: Holkham beach
- D: Cley Windmill
- England - London
- E: London Zoo
- F: Linley Sambourne House
Travel Guide
Norfolk
The book is based on extensive oral history and accounts of railway life. The cartoonist in London is loosely based on Linley Sambourne and his house at 18 Stafford Terrace. Sketching expeditions took the cartoonist and Rosie to London Zoo, where they were unfettered by societal norms and surrounded by newly discovered species. Once she has fled to Norfolk, Rosie is astonished by The Works and the coastal landscape. She befriends the baker’s boy, whose life is changed for ever by the tragedy that unfolds. Issues of class, religion and hierarchy meet sexual freedom, art and pornography.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Sitter
Destination/location: London, Norfolk Author/guide: Caroline McGhie Departure Time: 1900, 1901
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