Jessie Fothergill
Probation : $b a novel
"Probation" by Jessie Fothergill is a novel written in the late 19th century. Set in industrial Lancashire on the eve of the cotton famine, it explores duty, class, and conscience through the principled mill overlooker Myles Heywood and the cultured, half-foreign Adrienne Blisset, with an absentee owner, Sebastian Mallory, and a vulgar heir, Frederick Spenceley, sharpening conflicts. Expect factory life rendered from the loom-floor up, social critique of wealth and responsibility, and a developing cross-class attraction tempered by pride and politics. The opening of Probation plunges into a Thanshope weaving shed, introducing Myles—a skilled, proud overlooker—amid the deafening machines and Friday pay. Shop-floor talk skewers the absent mill owner as American war threatens cotton supply. Home reveals Myles’s household: sturdy sister Mary, sensitive invalid brother Edmund, and a querulous mother. Wandering to the town-hall library, Myles notices the Oakenrod (Mallory’s house) and intervenes when Frederick Spenceley pesters a young woman reader. She is Adrienne Blisset, who is gathering musical references for her infirm uncle’s ambitious book on Art and Civilisation; Myles escorts her to their lonely house, Stonegate, on Mallory land. A visit follows: Mr. Blisset’s paralysis, austere intellect, and Adrienne’s diligent service emerge, while Myles’s fascination—and the novel’s social and moral stakes—quietly take root.