Intensely interesting. It is rare to find a novel with such a wealth of incidents and characters, interwoven with such a solid philosophical plot »

The Guardian

This Winifred Holtby masterpiece is a rich evocation of the lives and relationships of 160 characters who populate South Riding (the Southern District) with unexpected beauty. Sarah Burton, the protagonist of it, is a fiery young director of a girls' school. District Councilor Mrs. Beddows is a character inspired by Holtby's own mother, and Robert Carne, a conservative gentleman locked in a disastrous marriage. Sarah Burton, a woman of extremes, falls in love with him. This story offers a panoramic and unforgettable view of life in the English countryside during the first half of the 20th century.

This novel, turned into a great classic of European literature, was published posthumously in March 1936 by the writer and friend Vera Brittain, and was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the same year. It has been made into a film and adapted for television on several occasions, and it is one of the few books that has not been discontinued since its publication to date.

The translation has been reviewed, updated and annotated.

Winifred Holtby (Rudston, June 23, 1898 - London, September 29, 1935) was especially famous for being a socialist journalist, pacifist and militant of the feminist group Six Point Group. She was also known for her novel South Riding and for her critical study of Virginia Woolf, which remained unpublished in Spanish until our publication.

In 1919 she returned to study at Oxford University from France, where she had resided since the beginning of the First World War. There she met Vera Brittain, later the author of Testament of Youth, with whom she was friends with her for the rest of her life.

Holtby's fame derived primarily from her work as a journalist. Very prolific, over the next decade and a half she wrote for more than twenty newspapers and magazines, including the feminist Time and Tide and the Manchester Guardian. She wrote a weekly column for the union magazine The Schoolmistress.

Her books at this time included two novels, Poor Caroline (1931) and Mandoa! Send to! (1933), and a volume of short stories, Truth is Not Sober (1934).

Holtby began to suffer from serious physical problems. In 1931 she was diagnosed with Bright's disease. She dedicated the last years of her life to writing her novel South Riding of hers. She died in 1935, at the age of 37.