Lark Rise to Candleford

Three classics of English rural life that follow the growth of a young country girl at the turn of the twentieth century. This collection gathers, together in one volume, Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), and Candleford Green (1943).

The quintessential portrayal of English country life, these stories follow the growth of Laura Timmins and three closely-related Oxfordshire communities – a hamlet, a village, and a town – along with the memorable cast of characters who live there. It is also a drama of great societal change as a quiet, close-knit and peaceful rural culture, ruled by the seasons, begins to join the modern world.

The basis for BBC film adaptations, The New York Times called this, “Flora Thompson’s great memoir of her Oxfordshire girlhood. The richness of the language, the lingering over detail and incident creates a haunting classic.” Keenly observed and beautifully told, Lark Rise to Candleford is an extraordinary mix of fiction and memoir for lovers of literature and exquisite insights into the lives, and times, of others.

Flora Thompson was a self-taught writer and a largely self-educated woman. Her most famous works are the Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, which she sent as essays to Oxford University Press in 1938 and which were published soon after.