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In the 1790s the Yorkshire seaside town of Monkshaven is disturbed by the arrival of the press-gang who come to seize and ship their captives abroad to fight in the Napoleonic wars. In this atmosphere of unease Sylvia's Lovers portrays the rivalries of two men, the sober tradesman Philip Hepburn, who has been devoted to his cousin Sylvia since her childhood, and the whaleship harpooner Charley Kinraid, who is gallant and charming with a reputation as a 'light-of-love' with women. Sylvia's tragedy, vividly and movingly dramatized, is to love one of these men, but to marry the other. Shirley Foster provides an Introduction to this Penguin Classics edition, together with notes and appendices on the novel's historical sources and text.