As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning - Hardcover

Lee, Laurie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0233961178 ISBN 13: 9780233961170

Publisher: Deutsch, 1969

Synopsis

Following the enthusiastic reception of Godine's reissue of Cider with Rosie, we are pleased to announce the second book in Laurie Lee's autobiographical trilogy, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.

"I was nineteen years old, still soft at the edges, but with a confident belief in good fortune. I carried a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese. I was excited, vain-glorious, knowing I had far to go; but not, as yet, how far."

So starts the adventure of the young Laurie Lee, who walks from his tiny village in a remote corner of Gloucestershire, to London and into the twentieth century. Knowing one Spanish phrase, he decides to take the ferry to Spain.

Unbeknownst to Lee, Spain in 1934 was on the verge of war, and, inexorably, he becomes entangled in the passionate, violent and bloody confusion that was the Spanish Civil War.

About this title

About the Author

Laurie Lee was born in 1914 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and was brought up with his mother and many siblings. At the age of nineteen he walked to London and then traveled on foot through Spain as described in As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. He married Catherine Polge and had one daughter; he died in 1997.

Reviews

Originally published in 1969, Lee's charming account of his travels in Spain in 1935 became almost as popular as his delightful Cider with Rosie. This fussily illustrated edition is an insult to an enjoyable prose work by a distinguished poet. Rather than eliciting the Spain that Lee visited, these old-fashioned illustrations from a variety of sources detract from a text that is rendered unreadable by a 34-pica measure, surmounted by running headlines (finically set in caps and italic initial caps), topped by a double line that serves as "walking" surface for a little man with stick (presumably representing the author) who promenades remorselessly across the page, pica by pica, as the reader progresses with the story. Each color illustration is surrounded by a white mat-like area enclosed, in turn, by a triple-rule frame set against a tan backgrounda tacky effect. The paperback reprint of the original edition is available for those who prefer unencumbered reading. October 28
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Twenty years before Jack Kerouac set off On the Road, Lee (A Moment of War, Audio Reviews, LJ 3/15/94) left the safety of his rural English home and embarked on a wondrous adventure. Supporting himself by playing the violin, the 20-year-old Lee made his way to London and then to Spain, where he spent a year wandering across the countryside on foot. Eventually Lee encountered the undercurrents of civil war and found himself hopelessly entangled. Using the highly polished wordsmithing tools he has developed as a poet, Lee masterfully evokes the ambience and tension of Europe on the eve of World War II. Lee's narration is like curling up on one's grandfather's lap and listening to stories of being attacked by wolves, hounded by the police, romanced by idealism, and seduced by beauty. This work is a fine nonfiction complement to Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Highly recommended.
Ray Vignovich, West Des Moines P.L., Ia.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Deutsch
• Publication date: 1969
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0233961178
• ISBN 13: 9780233961170
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Rosoman Leonard
• Number of pages: 252