What are "the dear years" in Redgauntlet?

Solution 1:

Dear here is related to dearth.

The average price of wheat during the first 140 years of the present enquiry is 5s 11¾d the quarter¹.

The following years were those of great dearth, the price of wheat rising above 10s the quarter: 1438, 1482, 1527, 1535, 1536.

A History of Agriculture and Prices in England Vol 3, James E Thorold Rogers; CUP 2011.

The "dear years" are those when a staple food was dear (pricey) because it was in short supply. They are years, perhaps not of famine, but certainly "defective harvests" as my source puts it.

OED has

dear
6.c. Said of a time or place in which prices for provisions, etc. are high; dear year, a year of dearth; also of a dealer who charges high prices.

It's not marked obsolete or even rare, but the latest citation is from 1888 in an entry which was updated in December 2020. I suppose even now one might say that a particular shop is "dear" — charging high prices.

¹ The "quarter" has varied over the period in question and could be as much as a quarter of a ton (500 pounds) or as little as a quarter of a hundredweight (28 pounds).