Sarah's School Friend

Sarah Clay is ashamed of her father. Not because he is poor, but because he is rich. Thomas Clay, a former mill-hand turned self-made millionaire, has grown brutal and coarse with prosperity, his refined daughter despising his crude manners and diminished sensitivity. When Horatia Cunningham, her aristocratic school friend from noble lineage, arrives for a visit, Sarah faces an impossible choice: defend her family or finally admit what she has always known. Set in an industrial English town where nouveau riche wealth collides with ancient aristocracy, May Baldwin's 1910 novel dissects the pretensions of class mobility with sharp, uncomfortable clarity. Sarah must navigate her mother's desperate attempts to climb higher while her father grows more vulgar, and decide whether blood or character defines a person.