The Classics Club Spin #18 - The Spin Number Has Been Announced!

The number for this Classics Club Spin is 9 which corresponds to Starvecrow Farm by Stanley J. Weyman on my list.

Weyman was a late 19th century author who wrote over 30 novels. Starvecrow Farm was first published in 1905. I couldn't find a detailed synopsis and the only information I've managed to uncover comes from various sources. It is a romance set in 1819, four years after the end of the
Napoleonic Wars, and during the industrialisation that took place in those post war years. My heart sank at this stage because my last Classics Club Spin was Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, set around the same time and still bookmarked at page 134. I'm hoping that the similarities end there.

Why was this book on my Classics Club List? I'd read Under the Red Robe, another of Weyman's novels, back in primary school. The memory of this book stayed with me through the years, but the author's name eluded me for a long time. When I discovered it, I was surprised by the number of novels Weyman had written. From these, Starvecrow Farm was a random choice for my Classics Club list.

My copy of Starvecrow Farm has been downloaded from Project Gutenberg and has no cover image, so I have included one of the illustrations from the novel as it reflects the time and place better than the modern cover images on the internet.

The novel opens with a dramatic dash across the quicksands of the Lancashire Channels by an eloping couple in a postchaise. They fear pursuit and also the rising tide, but hope their guide will bring them across safely. He does, as the caption of the illustration reads:

THEY PAID OFF THE GUIDE UNDER THE WALLS OF THE OLD PRIORY CHURCH AT CARTMEL

To see if they reach Scotland, I'll have to keep reading. Spin #18 is off to a good start.

Have you read Starvecrow Farm or any other novel by Stanley J. Weyman? Are you happy with the result of the spin?