English Novels - Joseph and his Brethran

Joseph and His Brethren

Paperback book, 384 pages

H W Freeman

Released 2003

Price £7.95

ISBN 1-903366-26-7

Joseph and his Brethren is an English novel, following the story of a Suffolk farming family through two generations. When Benjamin Geaiter purchases the run down Crakenhill Farm his presence is soon felt in the neighbouring villages. Although he is branded a murderer and a wife beater by local gossips, no one can deny his ability to farm the land. As the novel follows the various fortunes and misfortunes of Benjamin and his sons through the late 19th Century, it becomes clear that they each possess a passion for direct contact with the land they farm. This passion dominates all aspects of their existence and inextricably ties them to Crakenhill. It is only when their lives are altered by the arrival of a young housekeeper that their future becomes uncertain.
It was this novel which established H W Freeman’s reputation as a writer in Britain and America. It became a main selection of the American Book of the Month club in 1929.

The front cover painting is ‘Hoeing’ by Harry Becker, courtesy of Susannah Amoore and the Wildlife Art Gallery, Lavenham


		Joseph is set around Bruisyard in north-east Suffolk. The isolated Crakenhill Farm, with its crow-stepped gable, is still there.

Freeman recalled the fields of Suffolk in this English novel whilst living in the tumult of Florence Publishers Chatto & Windus wrote to him at Via De’ Serragli, south of the River Arno in an area of narrow streets and small shops. The room was right alongside the Monastero di Sant’Elisabetta delle Convertite, a house for female penitents dating back to the fourteenth century.