Lark Rise to Candleford »

Phillip Mallett is Lecturer in English at the University of St Andrews.

A gypsy woman once told Flora Thompson her fortune: "You are going to be loved by people you've never seen and never will see."

The prophecy came true when she published her endearing and precise record of country life at the end of the last century. She recorded an England stepping out of its disappearing past, a past of landed gentry, yeoman and retainer. In this picture she saw a courage and fulfillment that marked that world of diligent labor and self- effacement.

LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD combines Thompson's three autobiographical memoirs: LARK RISE, OVER TO CANDLEFORD and CANDLEFORD GREEN. Another powerful book of recollection on the same topic is LOST COUNTRY LIFE by Dorothy Hartley, also recorded by B-O-T.

John Fowles - New Statesman

Our literature has no finer remembrancer . . . no observer so genuinely endearing.