"I was born Julia Lacey in 1773, the daughter of the squire of Wideacre and his wife Celia Havering of Havering Hall. I was their only child; there was no male heir. I was raised with my cousin, Richard, the son of Beatrice, my father's sister. Those two - my papa and his sister - made my cousin and me joint heirs to Wideacre. They changed the entail on the estate so that we two could jointly inherit. We always knew that we were to run Wideacre together."
Chapter 1, Page 2

"I knew, even then, that there is a balance of needs on a land like ours. The masters take so much, the men take so much and they both keep the poor. The land has its rights too: even fields must rest. My Aunt Beatrice was once the greatest farmer for miles around, but someone, and no one would...