The Gallows Pole (Paperback) - Benjamin Myers

From his remote moorland home, David Hartley assembles a gang of weavers and land-workers to embark upon a criminal enterprise that will capsize the economy and become the biggest fraud in British history. They are the Cragg Vale Coiners and their business is 'clipping' the forging of coins, a treasonous offence punishable by death.

An England divided. From his remote moorland home, David Hartley assembles a gang of weavers and land-workers to embark upon a criminal enterprise that will capsize the economy and become the biggest fraud in British history.They are the Cragg Vale Coiners and their business is 'clipping' - the forging of coins, a treasonous offence punishable by death.A charismatic leader, Hartley cares for the poor and uses violence and intimidation against his opponents. He is also prone to self-delusion and strange visions of mythical creatures.When excise officer William Deighton vows to bring down the Coiners and one of their own becomes turncoat, Hartley's empire begins to crumble. With the industrial age set to change the face of England forever, the fate of his empire is under threat.Forensically assembled from historical accounts and legal documents, The Gallows Pole is a true story of resistance that combines poetry, landscape, crime and historical fiction, whose themes continue to resonate. Here is a rarely-told alternative history of the North.

About the Author

THE GALLOWS POLE by Benjamin Myers won the world's leading literary prize for historical fiction THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2018. BEASTINGS won The Portico literature Prize in 2015 and PIG IRON won The Gordon Burn Prize in 2013. Myers' is the recipient of the Society of Authors Roger Deakin Prize 2016 for The Gallows Pole. He also won the Northern Writers Award 2014 and the Society of Authors Tom Gallon Award.