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Loading... Sweet Thamesby Matthew Kneale
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A novel strongly based on the facts surrounding the Big Problem of clean water for London in the 1840s, and the cholera epidemics at the time. Matthew Kneale is steeped in the history of the time and wears his learning lightly. His solemn and slightly Pooterish hero, Joshua Jeavons, who is our narrator, makes the book amusing and a page turner. Aspects of the plot, his search for his missing wife for instance, were less interesting than his account of his search to impress his plans for sewage solutions on a reluctant world. It was a book that I was glad to read: I learnt quite a lot, and felt part of a deeply unpleasant London, its smells and sights. Not entirely convinced by the ending. Hmmm. It struck the only false note. ( ) no reviews | add a review
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London in the summer of 1849. With a deadly cholera epidemic threatening, young engineer Joshua Jeavons is convinced it is his mission to save the capital and reform its festering sewers. Meanwhile in his dometsic life he is troubled by the baffling coldness shown towards him by his beautiful bride, Isobella. As he struggles to win her round, he works feverishly on a revolutionary drainage plan. This is his dream, his dazzling vision of the future: a London free of effluent. No library descriptions found. |
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