"In this closely observed and carefully crafted story of the Hammer family in nineteenth-century Cornwall, Sue Appleby explores the life of a Cornish tenant farmer, his wives, and offspring. Drawing upon the rich material of her own family history, she investigates the varying fortunes of her great-grandfather, Philip Hammer of Porthpean, near St Austell, and in so doing brings alive the social history of nineteenth-century Cornwall - including the extraordinary Cornish diaspora which scattered Philip's sons and daughters as far afield as Australia and South Africa. The tale of one family, it...