Harvest

Walter Thirsk tells of seven days in which his remote English village comes apart. After the harvest, a fire damages Master Kent's stables and dovecote on the same night that three newcomers, a pair of men with a magnetic woman, set up camp at the woodland's edge. The villagers blame them: the men are put in the pillory, the woman's head is shaved, and talk of witchcraft spreads. A man hired to map the land has been sketching the fields, and when Kent's cousin arrives with a claim to the estate and plans to fence it for sheep, the villagers' whole way of life, which depends on gleaning, is threatened. Walter, kept from the fields by an injury, is an uncertain witness to what happens and to his own part in it.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

United Kingdom

First published

2013

Author's age

67 when first published

ISBN

9780385520775 (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, United States)

9780307278975 (Vintage, United States)

9781035090792 (Picador, United Kingdom)

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