The Second Inheritance

By: Melvyn Bragg

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Paperback | 1 February 1990 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
272 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
1.8 x 13.2 x 19.6

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'The effect of the book is massive . . . loving, deep and perceptive'
Sunday Times

'Bragg has a very sure touch with his characters: they live'
Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange

In the shadow of Hadrian's Wall, two young men chafe at the constraints of rural life and yearn to break free from the courses set for them: John Foster, driven hard by his tyrannical, ambitious father on their tenant farm, and Arthur Langley, reluctant inheritor of his father's waning estate. Though class has long kept their neighbouring families apart, the pair form an intense friendship - until John makes the mistake of falling for Arthur's mercurial sister.

Industry Reviews

The Second Inheritance is Melvyn Bragg's rather dualistic second novel, more sober in tone than For Want of a Nail, and one reads it quietly, attentively, unsure of the author's or the novel's direction. At the close a good many more things have been implied than resolved. It is set in the northern part of England, close to the old Roman wall, where Colonel Langley has reated a part of his land to Nelson Foster; the lines are well established between landed gentry on the one hand, and the tenant farmer on the other - Nelson doggedly pursues his rude, crude existence. In its realism, Bragg is writing close to the proletariat level of Alan Sillitoe. Most of the book, however, takes up the friendship between Langley's son and daughter, Arthur and Pat, and John; both young men are equally undetermined about what they want to do although there is no doubt in Nelson's mind that his son should take up farming. Homosexual and incestual relationships are suggested very faintly (Arthur and John; Arthur and Pat) before the young people return to their destined point of origin; John is left to pick potatoes. The market too may be summat special. (Kirkus Reviews)

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