Product Description
Flora Thompson (1876-1947) wrote what may be the quintessential distillation of English country life at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1945, the three books - Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), and Candleford Green (1943), were published together in one elegant volume, and this new omnibus Nonpareil edition, complete with charming wood engravings, should be a cause for real rejoicing.

This is 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.

The books have inspired two plays that ran in London, and the trilogy has been adapted into a multi-part, long-running television drama series by the BBC. The first series of ten episodes is scheduled to be syndicated on various PBS stations throughout the Unites States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Not a novel exactly
To those of you who love the BBC series, please know that this book isn't written in novel form exactly.The first part is like a written living history of late Victorian hamlet living.But it is a facinating insight and foundation to anyone who enjoys period writing and dramas.

Bone Structure for BBC Lark Rise to Candleford series
I am hooked on the BBC Lark Rise to Candleford tv series.However, had I not read the book which inspired the series, I would be at a loss.
Author Flora Thompson describes with clarity and intimacy the English countryside of the 1880s and 1890s.Change is in the air; some communities, Lark Rise for one, remain in the peaceful, penurious, agrarian past; other communities, such as the town of Candleford, are bustling centers of new enterprise mixed with the older professions (such as black smiths).These two places are connected by Thompson's story of her childhood in Lark Rise and her going out into the world to Candleford.
Each chapter of the book is a gentle, reflective and detailed remembrance.This is the perfect to read before retiring to sleep.

Lark Rise to Candleford
I became a fan of the BBC series "Lark Rise to Candleford" while visiting the UK.I have the DVDs of seasons 1 & 2 and this book is the perfect complement to the DVDs.The book goes into much more detail about life in late 1800's rural England.Absolutely fascinating.

Lark Rise to Candelford:A Trilogy

I received this book in a very timely manner and in great condition.I loved reading it.Now I can look forward to viewing the first and second seasons of the video productions.

Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy
This is very dry reading. It is not written as a story - but as a description of life, the area, customs, and culture of a time that was in transition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lark Rise to Candleford
My order was processed quickly.I received the book earlier than expected which was a surprise because it has to cross the pond.It was in perfect condition.Great service. I definitely would consider ordering from them again. ... Read more

Product Description
Flora Thompson's immortal trilogy, containing "Lark Rise", "Over To Candleford" and "Candleford Green", is a heartwarming portrayal of country life at the close of the 19th century. This story of three closely related Oxfordshire communities - a hamlet, the nearby village and a small market town - is based on the author's experiences during childhood and youth. It chronicles May Day celebrations and forgotten children's games, the daily lives of farmworkers and craftsmen, friends and relations - all painted with a gaiety and freshness of observation that make this trilogy an evocative and sensitive memorial to Victorian rural England. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Lark Rise to Candleford
Book was in good condition - have not had a chance to read-

Good History Book
I bought this book to see if it was like the TV series.

It was very good and obviously the TV series used the historical descriptions of Laura's childhood to craft the excellent series that so many have come to appreciate.

Many of the characters of the series were based on the real people described by the authoress of this classic.The post mistress and Laura's relatives are there and are rather like those in the TV hit, so it is not altogether unfamiliar territory.

I love history and this is well-written and often compelling reading matter.It gives both a general and a very specific background of the late Victorian period in part of rural England. The little stories and plots used in the Lark Rise to Candleford television series are not in this original work.

It is very good background to the heart-warming series of tales on television.This book has great descriptions of village life, individual characters and traditions.I found it very worth while but if you're looking for the stories or a developing plot you might be disappointed.

One of my favorite classics
I am so glad this book is still in print.It is one of my very favorites, and I read it at least once per year, like Huckleberry Finn.For those of us who love nature, and tales of growing up in the out-of-doors, this is a beautiful book of the natural world and agricultural lands.It contains wonderful sketches about farm life in the turn-of-the century English countryside, school life, and village characters.This book reminds me of Cider With Rosie (also called The Edge of Day) by Laurie Lee, another excellent book about growing up in England, set around the time of WWI.This is truly worthwhile reading. If you have read "Lark Rise to Candleford" and enjoyed it, another book by Flora Thompson, "Still Glides the Stream", deals with the same subject matter and is also very good.

A literary time machine
LRTC is one of those books that I read almost every year.Why you should ask?There is no other book that provides a view into a time long past as Flora Thompson does in this and her other major work, "Still Glides the Stream".These are works that allow you to see, smell, taste and touch the fabric of a society in full measure.There is nothing maudlin or sentimental in these works, they demonstrate the grinding poverty of the rural poor in the late 19th century when slowly but surely the winds of change were at work to topple once and for all the rigid hierarchy of the Victorian class system.Also lost are the rural traditions and folk life of a people bonded to the earth and its seasonal cycles.Yet at the same time fully demonstrating the quiet joys and happiness that take place within the family of Laura, the main character who is a thinly disguised Flora Thompson.
One of the great characters in literature you will meet here is Miss Dorcas Lane, the village postmistress Laura goes to work for.She has the grit, grace and humanity of a Dickens character.Miss Lane also is at the vanguard of a new era, when it's revealed she prefers reading Darwin than suffering the Victorian Bible babble around her.
Once encountered, this book will remain a trusted old friend to turn to again and again.

Nostalgia not what it used to be.
As the previous customer review notes, "Lark Rise to Candleford"fully details life in, alternately, an English hamlet (Lark Rise), a village and a town (Candleford) at the turn of the 20th C. And, as with the prior review, the book is invariably described as a fond recollection of a bygone, uncomplicated era.I value it, though, for the opposite reason, that by describing agricultural life of the last century so accurately and dispassionately, it unintentionally shows such life to be overwhelmingly impoverished, bare and humdrum.In several passages, the author Flora Thompson scolds herself for making the hamlet and village sound so unremittingly dull.Ironically, her protests only underscore the reality of daily existence.One of her most telling observations is about the rarity of drunkenness in Lark Rise, not, as one might infer, because of a higher moral standard, but because no one could afford more than a glass of beer at a sitting.At another point, she describes without editorial the death of noblesse oblige and the resulting hand-to-mouth poverty, unbroken by one-time manor-sponsored holidays and fetes, that accompanied the transition from tenant to wage farming in the latter half of the 19th century.The ultimate strength of this book for me, therefore, is its reminder that, for so many Western people, these really are the good, old days. ... Read more

Product Description
Flora Thompson's memoirs of a childhood spent in the Oxfordshire hamlet of Juniper in the 1880s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

simple account of a lost lifestyle
I borrowed this book from the library.I love the illustrations, which very much enhance the story.The author reminisces about the way things were in the English countryside in the 1880's.Her accounts anddescriptions might be simple, of everyday tasks that we don't think muchabout, but i really enjoyed learning about these details.

The book iread, the "Illustrated" version, is an abrigment of the threvolumes.The editors say at the end that the abridgment was done mostly toavoid repetition, which exists in the three books so that they can be readindependently of each other. ... Read more

Product Description
The first full biography of the author of "Lark Rise to Candleford", who became a poineer of the conservation movement. ... Read more

Product Description
240 p, line drawings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Country life around Oxford, before 1900.
Lovers of Lark Rise to Candleford will also enjoy this book.More on the daily lives of country folk before 1900, lovingly retold.There is more character development in this book than in Lark Rise.And less description of the hardships of daily life.This book is more nostalgic, written at the end of the author's life.Her rich descriptions of the countryside around Oxford transport the reader to another place and time.

Fine book by Flora Thompson
The book, "Still Glides the Stream" is the fourth volume of an autobiographical series by Flora Thompson, presenting a picture of English country life at the end of the nineteenth century.Charming, and beautifully written.Illustrated.This edition was published in 1948 by Oxford University Press.The first three volumes, "Lark Rise," "Over to Candleford," and "Candleford Green," were reissued in one volume as "Lark Rise to Candleford" in 1945.

reminiscences of village life
If you enjoyed "Cider With Rosie" by Laurie Lee, you are sure to also like "Lark Rise to Candleford" and "Still Glides the Stream" by Flora Thompson.These three books are all gentle, loving, and humorous recollections of childhoods spent in English villages.I first read "Lark Rise to Candlford" in Junior High.I have read it again almost every year, because it is one of my favorite books, full of the author's appreciation of the out-of-doors and agricultural ways,but I did not know Flora Thompson had written another book.When I received "Still Glides the Stream" in the mail, I was delighted to find that it exactly matches my illustrated "Cider With Rosie" and "Lark Rise to Candleford".All three books have similar covers and feature cut-outs of dried leaves, flowers, and insects, and paintings and sketches of farm and small-town life.In "Still Glides the Stream", Charity Finch, a retired schoolteacher, returns to the village of her childhood after the end of WWII.She remembers what life was like in "Restharrow", a made-up village in Oxfordshire.She has many warm memories of the unique characters and traditions which began disappearing after WWI and even more so after WWII.If you have an affection for old days and old ways, you are sure to find this is a charming, lovely and interesting book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Still Glides the Stream by Flora Thompson
This is a great book of nature and growing up in turn-of-the-century England by the author of "Lark Rise to Candleford".If you enjoyed reading "Lark Rise" or "Cider With Rosie" by Laurie Lee, you should definitely read this book. ... Read more

Product Description
An autobiography of "Laura" - as the author calls herself - which describes in detail her life in a country village. Her self-sufficient world of farm labourers and craftsmen working to the rhythms of the seasons and enjoying their traditional festivities is preserved for readers. ... Read more

Product Description
Indexes photographs, paintings and sketches of more than 9,000 species of animals and plants found all over the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Seller
could not have gone smoother.Product arrived in timely manner and in new condition. no complaints

Great evocation of a bygone age.
This is a depiction of country life in England in the 1870's and 1880's, as seen through the eyes ofthe author when a young girl.Everyday events are described with much detail, bringing vividly to life the people of a small hamlet.Her family and neighbours were poor, but they made the most of what they had, and lived a simple but satisfying life.As the author grows, she describes a wider world that she experiences, and her wonder at new products and inventions that will eventually change the world.The book is very well written and really brings the period to life.It is superbly read by Judi Dench.It is an excellent book to read to remind us of a time when life was not so complicated and did not have all the pressures that beset us today. ... Read more

Product Description
Brings together previously uncollected and unpublished work. ... Read more