Shaw, Fiona: The Sweetest Thing. First Edition/First Printing. *Signed*

This is a first edition and first printing of The Sweetest Thing by Fiona Shaw, published by Virago in 2003.

The book and protected dust jacket are in Fine condition with no inscriptions and not price clipped.

Signed by the author to the title page.

Description:

When Harriet, a working-class girl who, with her friend Mary has left her coastal job of collecting and gutting fish, stops on a bridge in her newly adopted home in York, she is approached by an upper-class gentleman. Samuel is a Quaker, a good soul, and a man interested in the new science of photography. He also collects photographs of working-class girls in their working clothes. Samuel invites the girls to come to his friend's studio.

While Mary is almost instantly lost to the art of photography, Harriet, a sturdier sort, goes on to get a job in the Quaker-owned Wetherby's Chocolate Factory. She soon catches the eye of a young clerk who is one of the favourites of the owners and through him discovers the deadly rivalry between the chocolate-makers. Samuel is also taken with the young Harriet, though because of class, he watches her from afar, until his sister - 'mad Grace' locked away in an asylum - becomes part of their mutual story. Set in York in the early 1900s, The Sweetest Thing is a true Victorian novel with a large cast and wonderfully intriguing subplots, set at a moment of great social change. 

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