The Sailor's Return

In the summer of 1858 an English mariner, William Targett, returns to his homeland from a voyage to western Africa, disguising his black princess wife as a boy and pretending their young child, concealed in a basket, is a parrot. The amusingly preposterous beginning of The Sailor's Return gives little hint of the tragedies that lie in store. In a sleepy Dorset village Targett rents a pub and sets about building a life for his family, but the local residents and even his own relatives have other ideas. Garnett's story, first published in 1925, was the first significant work in British literature to feature a black female as a major character. This study in human pettiness and prejudice, delineated with a tragic power reminiscent of Thomas Hardy and T.F. Powys, has lost none of its power to shock and disturb, as events unfold to their stark and brutal conclusion. It is a story that, once read, is never forgotten.


Genre: Literary Fiction