As the newly-built foundries of South Wales enter their first decline, a travelling harpist from the rural north arrives in town to find his friends caught in a fiercly-fought industrial dispute, a dispute which quickly spirals out of control.

With passion, humour and remarkable insight, Gwyn Thomas captures the world of south Wales in the 1830s during the turbulent years of the Merthyr and Newport Risings. This is a new edition of a novel first published in 1949, with an introduction by Raymond Williams.