&quot;Sylvia&rsquo;s Lovers&quot; is set in the 1790s in an English seaside town and it is a very powerfully moving novel of a young woman caught between the attractions of two very different men.<br />England is at war with France, and press-gangs wreak havoc by seizing young men for service. One of their victims is a whaling harpooner named Charley Kinraid, whose charm and vivacity have captured the heart of Sylvia Robson. But Sylvia&rsquo;s devoted cousin, Philip Hepburn, hopes to marry her himself and, in order to win her, deliberately withholds crucial information&mdash;with devastating consequences.<br /><br />Published in 1863, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell said &quot;Sylvia&#39;s Lover&quot;s was the saddest book she ever wrote, but it is undoubtedly one of his greatest.