Winifred Holtby (1898-1935) was an English journalist and novelist. Holtby was a committed socialist and feminist who wrote the classic South Riding as a warm yet sharp social critique of the well-to-do farming community she was born into. This was adapted into a British Drama film and later a television adaptation by the BBC. She wrote a lot of literary fiction, biographies and memoirs. She was a good friend of Vera Brittain, possibly portraying her as Delia in The Crowded Street. She died at the age of thirty-seven.

Mary Robson is a young Yorkshire woman, married to her solid, unromantic cousin, John. Together they battle to preserve Mary's neglected inheritance, her beloved farm, Anderby Wold. This labour of love - and the benevolent tyranny of traditional Yorkshire ways - have made Mary old before her time. Then into her purposeful life comes David Rossitur, red-haired, charming, eloquent: how can she help but love him? But David is a young man from a different England, radical and committed to social change. As their confrontation and its consequences inevitably unfold, Mary's life and that of the calm village of Anderby are changed forever.