Anna Frith

Anna Frith is the central character in the novel, and the story is told from her first person perspective. Anna was raised harshly by a loveless father and stepmother after her natural mother died in childbirth. She married miner, Sam Frith, when only fifteen, ready to escape her father's home and brutality. She had two sons with Sam - Jamie and Tom - though Sam died in a mining accident when Tom was only a baby. To make ends meet, Anna goes works as a maid at the rectory and occasionally at the local estate, Bradford Hall. She dotes on her children and is devastated when the plague takes them. Anna is empathetic, compassionate and loving but with vulnerabilities and weaknesses with which it is easy to identify. In her depression, she takes poppy to escape the pain, and she also longs for the touch of a...