Only a Clod

Francis Tredethlyn begins the book as a private soldier and servant to a languid young ensign at the Port Arthur convict settlement in Tasmania; the rest follows the soldier and his officer home to England, where the clod turns out to be the better man. Braddon wrote three novels a year for decades and this is the machinery running smoothly. Fifty-nine plates of farm and field by painters including George Clausen and Patrick Nasmyth run from 1800 to 1922, giving the plain man's world its due.