Here Are Lovers

Bored and frustrated with the restricted life of a Victorian young lady, Laetitia—the beautiful and bookish daughter of the local Anglicized Squire Wingfield—encounters the romance she longs for when she becomes lost during a clandestine nighttime ride and is rescued by Gronwy Griffitch, the son of a Welsh tenant farmer. Attempting to assist Gronwy’s ambitions to become a classical scholar by lending him books from her father’s library, Laetitia becomes increasingly aware of her own disempowerment and the passionate desires that drive her into a love affair with him. Their secret meetings are paralleled with the tender relationship developing between Gronwy’s brother Peter and another local farmer’s daughter, Elizabeth Evans. After Gronwy is imprisoned for inciting a riot at the local by-election, the narrative moves inexorably towards its tragic ending. Demonstrating how both Gronwy and Laetitia are trapped, one by class, the other by gender, this historical novel explores the ways in which these roles intersect with nationality in 19th-century Wales.