He is focused on rebuilding his farm and reopening a family mine, partly in order to ameliorate living conditions for his tenants and local families who rely on mine work for income. Without concern for his social standing, he marries the daughter of an impoverished miner who has been working for him as a housemaid and kitchen assistant for several years. While by virtue of his birth and land ownership, he is a member of the gentry, his attitudes about justice generally are at variance with those of his peers. Poldark stands up for the impoverished and attempts to protect the vulnerable. Poldark's character emerges throughout the book in a number of subplots involving his relatives, women with whom he has romantic entanglements, the local gentry, servants, tenants, miners, poachers and competitors. When he returns, he discovers that his father has died, his family home has fallen into disrepair, the hard-drinking servants are selling off the household items, and the woman he loves is engaged to marry his cousin. The war has left him with a prominent facial scar and a pronounced limp. Poldark returns to Cornwall after serving with the British army in the American Revolutionary War.

Ross Poldark is the protagonist of the novel. Sales of the novel increased by 205% after the premiere of the 2015 television adaptation. The novel has twice been adapted for television, first in 1975 and then again in 2015. Ross Poldark is the first of twelve novels in Poldark, a series of historical novels by Winston Graham.

Winston graham poldark books in order