Hi, I’m looking for fiction books that capture the feel of the British countryside, whether that be good or bad. Sweeping fields and cold weather. I don’t mind if it romanticises it or depicts it in a bad way. I have read Wuthering Heights and liked certain parts that reference this tone but overall it’s more focused on the family drama than the setting.
Thanks in advance!
by theblairwitches
8 Comments
Kazuo Ishiguro — The Remains Of The Day (written in the 80s, set in the 50s, framed around a road trip through the country)
Douglas Adams — Watership Down (talking bunnies in England)
JRR Tolkien — The Lord of The Rings (fundamentally a story about traipsing around England)
Thomas Hardy — Far From The Madding Crowd (late 19th-century romance novel that feels very outdoorsy and has beautiful nature descriptions)
Virgina Woolf — To The Lighthouse (from the 1920s, sort of a modernist update on the Victorian novel, also has beautiful nature descriptions and a lot of focus on the setting itself)
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (entirely in Wessex, but he gives it a made-up name).
The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper is a classic of children’s fantasy that gives a very vivid sense of place: 1. Over Sea Under Stone (set in Cornwall), 2. The Dark is Rising (Buckinghamshire), 3. Greenwitch (Cornwall), 4. The Grey King (Wales), and 5. Silver on the Tree (all over Britain).
No Blade of Grass, John Christopher.
Cider with Rosie – Laurie Lee
A Month in the Country – J.L. Carr
Not fiction but hv Morton’s travel book ‘In search of England’ is often cited as being instrumental in defining the standard view of England and is very entertaining. Morton was an interesting character (got the scoop on Tutankhamens tomb) and something of a misogynist by contemporary standards as were many men of his age.
Someone already commented it, but I will never stop recommending *The Dark is Rising* series by Susan Cooper. It’s one of my all-time favorites.
*The Secret Garden* by Francis Hodgson Barnett is also really good for this. It has a little bit of everything: a sprawling old manor house to be explored, beautiful grounds and gardens, captures gloomy weather feel on landscape.
Lark Rise to Candleford.old fashioned but my comfort read when I was ill or depressed.
All Creatures Great and Small