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Robert Neill, The Mills of Colne, Frightened, violent men fought against the power-looms, Arrow Edition 1961 Paperback Condition: Good + Foxing and discoloration on the edges, marks of creases on the covers, but in general very clean copy, all pages intact, no inscriptions. Robert Geoffrey Neill (19 November 1905 1979)] was an English writer of historical fiction. From Martin Crookall's review: "Song of Sunrise (1958) (re-titled in paperback, The Mills of Colne) - Neills sixth novel is an extremely rare example of a book being retitled between its hardback and paperback editions in the UK. The novel first appeared in 1958 as Song of Sunrise, a gracious and poetic title that, for reasons unknown, was abandoned for the utterly prosaic The Mills of Colne when re-published in paperback in 1961. The scene moves to the Nineteenth Century, to the very beginnings of Victorias long reign. There is no adventure story, no Thrills or Romance, though there is of course the standard relationship to be formed. The setting is Colne, near Burnley, in Central Lancashire: only a few miles away from the scene of Mist over Pendle, but two centuries and an unimaginable distance from the début novel. And instead of the tightly-plotted events confined to mere weeks, or even days, The Mills of Colne stretches over two years, from 1837 to 1839. For this is a social realist novel, a study of turbulent times, scenes that were being replicated all over England, as hand-weaving and hand-looms were being squeezed out by powered-machines, when frightened, hungry, resentful men were fighting for their lives in trying to hold the Industrial Revolution from coming into being. The meat of the book is those two years, from just before Victorias Accession, to the dissolution of the Chartist Movement in failure: this is what The Mills of Colne is about. Its about a country experiencing what we now call Recession, about the transition from horse and hand-power to machine power, about the fears of starving men and the determination of masters make their businesses a success. There is even the political undertone, slight though it is in this book, of fear of rebellion, of the first questioning of places, and of a hierarchy that has always existed. As a work of social history, The Mills of Colne is fine. As a novel about people, Song of Sunrise is hopelessly outweighed by that social history.". Seller Inventory # 000146
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