Flora Thompson

"Lark Rise is Flora Thompson's childhood memories of a north Oxfordshire village, the people who lived and worked in it, and a way of life that has totally disappeared. The story is built around Laura and her brother Edmund, through whose eyes are seen "old Sally, " whose grandfather built the house she lived in before the enclosure of the heathland, children's games, the interaction of village and gentry, and the way in which the seasons governed life."--Jacket.

A collection of the articles Flora Thompson wrote for a small magazine, the Catholic fireside, between 1916 and 1928, when she lived in Liphook in Hampshire as the postmaster's wife. Her interest was captured by many things, including a kestrel hunting in the January skies, the return of migrant birds in April, the remedial properites of the elder tree, and the solitary life of the ploughman. Flora Thompson is perhaps best-known as the author of the country classic, Lark rise to Candleford, and her remarkable observations about the countryside form a valuable part of the history of rural England.

In 'Still Glides the Stream,' Flora Thompson returns to the English countryside of her childhood. Published posthumously in 1948, it paints an unforgettable picture of the people and way of life of almost a century ago. Unlike her best-selling trilogy, the book is entirely fictional, centered on the imaginary Oxfordshire village of Restharrow around the time of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. The village and its inhabitants are seen through the eyes of Miss Charity Finch, a retired school mistress, who returns to Restharrow to relive the memories of her early years. Her memories capture a world where life was hard but values were solid and enduring, but it is also a world that was vanishing...even as Charity Finch remembers her childhood. In 'Still Glides the Stream,' Flora Thompson employs her imagination and artistic skills to wholly new effect. With an unforgettable gallery of characters, Uncle Reuben, Bess, Mercy, Luke, Stella Pocock, and the rest, she creates a vivid and affectionate portrait of life in the English countryside as it was a century ago.

The story of three closely-related Oxfordshire communities -- a hamlet, a village, and a town -- and the memorable cast of characters who people them. Based on Thompson's own experiences as a child and young woman, it is keenly observed and beautifully narrated, quiet and evocative.

In the little hamlet of Lark Rise times are changing and Laura is growing up. Although she must attend the nearby village school, she would far rather read and make up stories in her head. Real-life excitement comes, however, when she and her beloved younger brother Edmund are allowed to walk on their own to the grand market town of Candleford to stay with their relatives one summer. There, Laura discovers the joys of the shops, the ways of boy-talk with her cousins and the secret world of 'Bookworms Ltd' with her Uncle Tom, before an offer arrives that will determine her future. A story of friendships, rivalries and a young girl finding her place in the world, this is the second part of Flora Thompson's endearing Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy on country life, which evokes the passage from childhood to adolescence and a society on the cusp of transformation.