Dimensions
129 x 198 x 14mm
Lark Rise to Candleford is one of the defining accounts of nineteenth-century rural England, yet little is known of the writer behind it. Richard Mabey's moving biography reveals a woman who commemorated village life but also longed to escape it, telling a story of myth-making, transformation and the struggle for creative expression.
'Heartening, profound . . . It seems unlikely we shall ever get closer to the woman who wrote Lark Rise to Candleford.' John Carey, Sunday Times
'Britain's greatest nature writer . . . he grasps instinctively Thompson's unrequited longings, a thwartedness that feeds into her work.' Rachel Cooke, Observer
'A gem of a book, small, perfectly formed, informative and, as his title suggests, dreamy.' Chris Dolan, Sunday Herald
'Empathetic and knowledgeable . . . Mabey's mission is to retrieve Thompson from the 'condescension of posterity'.' Juliet Gardiner, Sunday Telegraph