Franklin (Christine) The Dancing Stones

London, Robert Hale, 1984.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.

A historical novel set on Dartmoor and in the Victorian provincial theatre. According to the jacket, Charlotte Wells, who after a hard and lonely childhood on Dartmoor is living an indulged social life with her wealthy aunt and uncle in Exeter, returns briefly to the Moor to visit her troubled stepmother, Leah. At Crick Farm she meets Eddie, the companion of her childhood, but rejects him for a more aristocratic suitor; then, once engaged, she runs off with a gypsy dancer to seek a career on the stage. Among “the tawdry glitter and near-poverty of provincial Victorian theatres” she finds passion, cruelty and hardship, along with “the heady lure of fame”.