Artist Margaret Talbot has overcome prejudice, discrimination and assault to become a magazine illustrator in the male dominated world of publishing at the end of the nineteenth century. She and her husband, John, have traveled the world creating magazine articles that he writes and she illustrates. The articles and Margaret’s artwork have garnered praise and awards as John supports her illustrating and painting, even when he loses his membership in a prominent club because of it. In 1898, Margaret suffers a stillbirth and nearly dies. From that point, John withdraws all contact, physically and emotionally, without explanation or justification. At the same time, Margaret finds that she can no longer express that certain special something in her art and begins to question if she is an artist at all. The Talbots travel to a small fishing village for an article where Margaret meets many people who help and hinder her. One of these is a young woman named Sara who skips and sings nonsense songs and has trouble understanding everyday things, like how wagon wheels go around. Margaret fears Sara suffered a childhood trauma and is hiding from the real world but some in the village say that Sara is a selkie, a magical being from Celtic mythology who walks on the land as a human and swims in the sea as a seal. With the influence of the villagers, and her own self-determination, Margaret strives to discover who she is and want she wants from life. Now with authentic engravings from the Victorian era in an illustrated edition. Beyond the Shallow Bank Illustrated Edition