Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

~ (Author), H.J. Massingham (Introduction), Richard Mabey (Introduction) "The hamlet stood on a gentle rise in the flat, wheat-growing north-east corner of Oxfordshire..." (more)
Key Phrases: end house children, hamlet children, hamlet women, Miss Lane, Candleford Green, Lark Rise (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Flora Thompson's immortal trilogy, containing "Lark Rise", "Over To Candleford" and "Candleford Green", is a heartwarming portrayal of country life at the close of the 19th century. This story of three closely related Oxfordshire communities - a hamlet, the nearby village and a small market town - is based on the author's experiences during childhood and youth. It chronicles May Day celebrations and forgotten children's games, the daily lives of farmworkers and craftsmen, friends and relations - all painted with a gaiety and freshness of observation that make this trilogy an evocative and sensitive memorial to Victorian rural England.

About the Author

Born in Juniper Hill, Oxfordshire, Flora Thompson left school at 14 to work in the local post office. She married young, and wrote mass-market fiction to help support her increasing family. In her 60s she published the semi-autobiographical trilogy combined as LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD (1945). RICHARD MABEY is the author of some thirty books, including Whistling in the Dark: In Pursuit of the Nightingale, Beechcombings: the narratives of Trees, the ground-breaking and best-selling "cultural flora" Flora Britannica, and Gilbert White, which won the Whitbread Biography Award. His recent memoir Nature Cure was short-listed for three major literary awards. He writes for the Independent, the Guardian, Resurgence and Granta, and contributes frequently to BBC radio. He lives in Norfolk, in the Waveney Valley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141183314
• ISBN-13: 978-0141183312
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #131,587 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nostalgia not what it used to be., August 16, 2001

By	Thomas F Wells (Chislehurst Kent UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy (Hardcover)

As the previous customer review notes, "Lark Rise to Candleford" fully details life in, alternately, an English hamlet (Lark Rise), a village and a town (Candleford) at the turn of the 20th C. And, as with the prior review, the book is invariably described as a fond recollection of a bygone, uncomplicated era. I value it, though, for the opposite reason, that by describing agricultural life of the last century so accurately and dispassionately, it unintentionally shows such life to be overwhelmingly impoverished, bare and humdrum. In several passages, the author Flora Thompson scolds herself for making the hamlet and village sound so unremittingly dull. Ironically, her protests only underscore the reality of daily existence. One of her most telling observations is about the rarity of drunkenness in Lark Rise, not, as one might infer, because of a higher moral standard, but because no one could afford more than a glass of beer at a sitting. At another point, she describes without editorial the death of noblesse oblige and the resulting hand-to-mouth poverty, unbroken by one-time manor-sponsored holidays and fetes, that accompanied the transition from tenant to wage farming in the latter half of the 19th century. The ultimate strength of this book for me, therefore, is its reminder that, for so many Western people, these really are the good, old days.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite classics, March 20, 2006

By	Sammy Madison (USA) - See all my reviews

I am so glad this book is still in print. It is one of my very favorites, and I read it at least once per year, like Huckleberry Finn. For those of us who love nature, and tales of growing up in the out-of-doors, this is a beautiful book of the natural world and agricultural lands. It contains wonderful sketches about farm life in the turn-of-the century English countryside, school life, and village characters. This book reminds me of Cider With Rosie (also called The Edge of Day) by Laurie Lee, another excellent book about growing up in England, set around the time of WWI. This is truly worthwhile reading. If you have read "Lark Rise to Candleford" and enjoyed it, another book by Flora Thompson, "Still Glides the Stream", deals with the same subject matter and is also very good.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent appreciation of the "old" ways, December 26, 1997

By	[e-mail] (Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

This trilogy was one I read many years ago and only returned to recently. On this reading it was an even better - recalling in detail a life which has totally gone now but has a wonder and joy in it which we can no longer experience. On having her fortune told - the main character was told she would be loved by people she had never met - for once astrology worked. An excellent piece of literature.