Spanning the years from the late Victorian period up to the Second World War, The Dark Lantern (first published in 1951) is the first of Henry Williamson's fifteen-volume A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight series.
The story follows Richard Maddison, a countryman working in London. As a clerk in the City, Maddison struggles to make do on a few shillings a week. Then he meets Hetty Turner, the youngest daughter of a prosperous City merchant, and falls in love. However, he is not the kind of man her father wants her to marry and the narrative follows Richard as he courts and eventually marries Hetty.
Full of period detail The Dark Lantern is a sympathetic and evocative read of what it was like to be a humble clerk in a time when south London was rapidly expanding and reaching ever closer into rural Kent.