Book
The Black Rocks of Morwenstow
First published 2016
In 1842 Joshua Weyland is desperate to leave America and return to England and his fiancée, but the brig carrying him home is wrecked on the Cornish coast. He survives only to become convinced that the disaster was no accident. As an eccentric doctor and his daughter nurse him back to health, Joshua begins asking dangerous questions among fishermen, tin miners and the coastal ‘Preventers’ charged with suppressing smuggling, gradually uncovering a community in which wrecking, contraband and local loyalties are difficult to separate.
The novel is set in early Victorian Cornwall, when isolated coves and a long tradition of illicit trade still shaped coastal life even as customs enforcement became more organised. Wilcox uses the hazards of Atlantic shipping, storms and suspicion of outsiders to build a historical mystery around the persistent folklore of deliberate wrecking. The setting gives equal weight to maritime danger and the social world of a Cornish coast negotiating the decline of older smuggling economies.
Historical Periods
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