A Man of his Time

A Man of His Timecontinues the chronicles of the Oldroyd and Morcar families, which began with Inheritanceand The Rise of Henry Morcar,to complete an unforgettable trilogy of the West Riding. The years of change from 1958 to 1965 present Henry Morcar with the severest challenges and trickiest assignments of his life as he surmounts successive disasters only to find his life's work threatened. A Man of his Timeis a story of conflict between age and youth, between Morcar and the younger generation around him. These descendants of Oldroyds, Bamforths, Morcars and Mellors are real and living, linked to the past but vibrantly imagined in their own time.

Phyllis Bentley (1894-1977) was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, where she was educated until she attended Cheltenham Ladies College, Gloucestershire.

In 1932 her best-known work, Inheritance, was published to widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. This was in contrast to her previous efforts, a collection of short stories entitled The World's Bane, and several poor-selling novels. The success of Inheritance made her the most successful English regional novelist since Thomas Hardy, and she produced two more novels to create a trilogy; The Rise of Henry Morcar and A Man Of His Time. This success made her a much demanded speaker and she became an expert on the Bronte family.

Over her career she garnered many awards; an honorary DLitt from Leeds University (1949); a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1958); awarded an OBE (1970).