02709cam a22003373u 4500 76077 UtSlPG 20260610134748.0 m cr n 260607r20251887utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d UtSlPG en iso639-1 PR Fothergill, Jessie, 1851-1891 Probation Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2025 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Release date is 2025-05-13 Carla Foust, Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) "Probation" by Jessie Fothergill is a novel written in the late 19th century. Set in industrial Lancashire on the eve of the cotton famine, it explores duty, class, and conscience through the principled mill overlooker Myles Heywood and the cultured, half-foreign Adrienne Blisset, with an absentee owner, Sebastian Mallory, and a vulgar heir, Frederick Spenceley, sharpening conflicts. Expect factory life rendered from the loom-floor up, social critique of wealth and responsibility, and a developing cross-class attraction tempered by pride and politics. The opening of Probation plunges into a Thanshope weaving shed, introducing Myles—a skilled, proud overlooker—amid the deafening machines and Friday pay. Shop-floor talk skewers the absent mill owner as American war threatens cotton supply. Home reveals Myles’s household: sturdy sister Mary, sensitive invalid brother Edmund, and a querulous mother. Wandering to the town-hall library, Myles notices the Oakenrod (Mallory’s house) and intervenes when Frederick Spenceley pesters a young woman reader. She is Adrienne Blisset, who is gathering musical references for her infirm uncle’s ambitious book on Art and Civilisation; Myles escorts her to their lonely house, Stonegate, on Mallory land. A visit follows: Mr. Blisset’s paralysis, austere intellect, and Adrienne’s diligent service emerge, while Myles’s fascination—and the novel’s social and moral stakes—quietly take root. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1887 English fiction -- 19th century Lancashire (England) -- Fiction Cotton famine, 1861-1864 -- Fiction https://archive.org/details/probationnovel00fothrich https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76077 116802 116802