The Miner & the Viscount is set in the author's native Cornwall in the late eighteenth century, a time of social turbulence and historical significance, when Cornwall mirrored the history of Britain: the birth of the industrial and agricultural revolutions, the expansion of empire, the coming of the Enlightenment, the rise of Methodism. A royal duchy, Cornwall had 44 Members of Parliament (as many as all of Scotland); new-fangled steam engines worked in her tin and copper mines; her seamen explored the world's oceans and her politicians led the exploitation of America. Cornwall is one of...