Here is a book about the English countryside of a new sort, which has an appeal as much to the body of readers that looks forward eagerly to Miss Hartley's articles and books as those who follow and appreciate her valuable work of research in medieval history and folk-lore; for the purposes of the book, the land is divided according to its physical ingredients: Mountain and Moorland, The Undulating Farmlands, Garden and Orchard Country, Flatlands and Fens, Woods and Downs, and lastly the girdle of Sea-coast with its many estuaries, and by visiting these types of country with Miss Hartley you are rewarded by fresh information on customs and life, from the ways of the shepherd in winter to the West Country housewife’s pork pies and Somerset cider-brewing, enriched by her rare gift of observation and deep interest in country folk and accompanied by 128 photographs showing the workaday round through the seasons, with a colour frontispiece after John Nash and a foreword by A. G. Street, issued as a Batsford Book.

Dorothy Hartley

The Countryman's England