Poldark's Cornwall

Book excerpt: A lavishly illustrated companion to Winston Graham's beloved Poldark novels, reissued to coincide with the BBC series based on the novels. Graham's saga of Cornish life in the eighteenth century has enthralled readers throughout the world for seventy years and the wild landscapes that inspired the novels have - even today - remained relatively unchanged. Cornwall then was a perilous world of pirates and shipwrecks: of rugged coast and mysterious smugglers' coves, of windswept moors and picturesque villages such as Boscastle and Port Quin, and of beaches, tin mines and churches. With an introduction by Winston Graham's son, Andrew, and illustrated with stunning photographs, Poldark's Cornwall is a glorious evocation of the land of beauty, excitement, romance and imagination that Graham loved so well.