Lark Rise to Candleford

Lark Rise to Candleford #1-3 omnibus

by Flora Thompson

The Story of three closely related Oxfordshire communities - a hamlet, the nearby village and a small market town - this immortal trilogy is based on Flora Thompson'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 the freshness of observation that makes this a precise and endearing portrayal of country life at the end of the last century.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, British Literature, 19th Century, Novels

537 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Flora Jane Thompson (5 December 1876 – 21 May 1947) was an English novelist and poet famous for her semi-autobiographical trilogy about the English countryside, Lark Rise to Candleford.

Flora benefited from good access to books when the public library opened in Winton, in 1907. Not long after, in 1911, she won an essay competition in The Ladies Companion for a 300-word essay about Jane Austen.[6] She later wrote extensively, publishing short stories and magazine and newspaper articles. She was a keen self-taught naturalist and many of her nature articles were anthologised in 1986.

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. She wrote a sequel Heatherley which was published posthumously. The books are a fictionalised, if autobiographical, social history of rural English life in the late 19th and early 20th century and are now considered minor classics.

Reviews

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gift Thompson has bequeathed us. In our academies we learn history from the top down: “Big" people first followed by middling ones who managed to become important, and then the rest - farmers, laborers, servants, and craftsmen who left little more to posterity than their names in parish records and the artifacts we dig up (when we want to build a new road e.g.), catalog, and make stories about. The former existence of these people, from whom most of us are descended, are only known to us via the records of the crops they harvested, the roofs they thatched, and the wars they died in. But such records, compiled and interpreted by the Big and Middling people, have only a fleeting relationship to the people they reference.

So, again, what a gift Flora Thompson offered up in 1939 when she published Lark Rise, her first memoir in what would become a trilogy depicting rural life in Oxfordshire during the 1880s and 90s. The daughter of a self-employed craftsman, Flora grew up in the smallest and poorest of social organizations, the rural hamlet. Her record of the lives and folkways of her family and neighbors, at a time when the self-sufficiency of the tenant farmer had completely given way to the wage economy and agricultural laborers had to bring up large families on ten shillings a week, is richly detailed: Their fashions, their foods, their celebrations, the songs they sang, the games they played, their daily and seasonal work routines, their schooling, their politics, their religion, their births and deaths, their joys and tribulations are all remembered in Thompson’s deceptively simple prose that masks a great and sophisticated literary power.

If your ancestor was as Ag. Lab., I recommend to get to know him/her through Thompson's firsthand experience.

Lark Rise to Candleford was published as a trilogy in 1945 and includes Over to Candleford (1941) and Candleford Green (1943)

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like so many others, I wanted to read Lark Rise to Candleford because I love the TV series. The book was not really what I expected, having very little plot and only focusing seriously on a few characters. (Mainly Laura, of course. So most characters you know and love from the show only get passing mentions in the books, at best.) But still, I loved it! It was such a lovely book. At first I found it a little dry, but soon became enchanted with the description of life in Lark Rise (where the first two books were set). And Laura! Oh, I loved Laura. I found a kindred spirit in her. Which is strange because I'm rather indifferent to her in the TV show...
If you're a fan of the series I would recommend reading this. Just don't expect it to be terribly like the show. The overall spirit is the same, though.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very pleasant and comforting visit to the past that was a perfect bedtime read for me.

[Sonia Gomes · Rating 4 out of 5]

At sixteen, I thought this book was a colossal bore, where was the excitement I was craving for...

At a much later date, my craze for excitement in books had abated, I picked it up and found it very good.

It really is a meticulous account about rural England at the turn of the Century .

The author Flora Thompson has worked extremely hard to write everything she observed in her village, the lives of the peasants, the food they ate, the crops they grew, not a single detail has been overlooked.

I loved the book, it gave me a feeling of calm and peace but sadly a world that will never return, a simplicity that is lost forever.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very long book! It almost reads more like a blog (a very faithfully, well written blog) that Flora Thompson is keeping of her life in the late 1800's in rural England. Despite the lack of plot (think of the lack of plot in a good blog, yet it's still interesting to read) it moves with grace from one topic to another, or from one interesting person to another.

I do recommend the television series to those who are fans of costume drama. The characters are so incredibly truthful with each other that it draws out the truth in your life. It makes you confront it because the characters in the show do so. The truth can be painful, but also it can set you free. I have found both to be true. Yet, I always like it if the truth in my life can end and begin with a small, but good smile of self acceptance. I do try to be sure to put that in if I possibly can. I find an understanding smile is a good side dish to serve with truth.

[Maria Olga Lectoraapasionada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una amena y deleitosa lectura, Flora Thompson me hizo sumergirme en su mundo, recordando con añoranza tiempos pasados, una novela para saborear sin prisas, muy amable lectura para esto tiempo que estamos viviendo, excelente forma de narrar.

Extractos del libro:

No hagas preguntas y no te contarán mentiras.

—Madre, ¿Dónde consiguió la tía Ruth a su bebé? —Lo hicieron ella y el tío Ralph. —¿Y van a hacer más?— No lo creo. Al menos no durante algún tiempo, pues la verdad es que se trata de algo muy complicado y terriblemente caro.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars
Miss Constance kept nineteen cats in the big house where she lived alone, for she could not trust servants; she thought they would always be spying on her.

One of my reading goals in 2017 is to pay attention to the books placed on my shelf when I became a Goodreads member in 2013. After all, it's a shame when books are left alone on shelves for long periods of time by themselves- literally or virtually.

Unlike the many other reviewers of this omnibus, I only watched the first episode of the show. That was many years ago. No, this book was strongly suggested to me based on my love of authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Thomas Hardy. Unfortunately, Flora Thompson was found to be a very pale version of the aforementioned (and well loved) authors that grace my bookshelves.

Lark Rise to Candleford could perhaps be described as a "encyclopedia of life in late 19th century England". Pages upon pages discuss the fashion, child-rearing, education, and political and economic times that the townspeople are part of. When the story does center on a person- it is mostly on Laura and village life as she perceives it. As soon as I came to this description of the student that was Laura, I knew I had met a "kindred spirit."

Many of the children read so slowly and haltingly that Laura, who was impatient by nature, longed to take hold of their words and drag them out of their mouths, and it often seemed to her that her own turn to read would never come.

What I enjoyed most was that Laura was a voracious reader and a reader can certainly compile a healthy list of books to dive into. I had to giggle when Laura slips Don Juan into her apron to find out why her hostess wants to " burn it in the garden. "

On the other hand, there wasn't a whole lot of plot and I'm a bit underwhelmed at the story. The magical experience which many others were able to find appears to have eluded me.


Had she lived later she might have made her mark on the world, for she had the quick, unerring grasp of a situation, the imagination to forsee and the force to, carry through, which means certain success. But there were few openings for women in those days, especially for those born in small country villages, and she had to content to rule over her own small establishment.

When I am dead and in my grave, and all my bones are rotten. Take this book and think of me and mind I'm not forgotten.

[Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seeing as this book is 3 books in 1 my review has averaged the 3 books.

Book 1: Lark Rise 1 star
Rather boring overly detailed living in crappy village. I would think it was endearing and sweet if she didn't destroy all her lovely anecdotes with something horrible about what happened years later. Like Twister, lovely old man, years later he took to kill cats. Laura's father, worked hard his whole life hoping to better his family and get out of Lark Rise, he died in the same cottage 40 years later. Just making sweet memories bleak and depressing.

Book 2: Over to Candleford 3 stars
First 3/4 basically the same as the first book, but then it gets interesting once they actually get to Candleford. The interaction of a country town with Laura's young mind is fascinating.

Book 3: Candleford Green 5 stars
Now THIS is why I read the book. I started to watch the tv show and just loved it, hence picking up this book. It took me a year to finish it because the first book and a substantial part of the second were depressing and nothing like the show except for some character names and vague stories. But Candleford Green IS the show. If you are a fan of the show, just pick up this volume, it's wonderful and sweet and lots of fun with Laura at the Post Office working for Dorcas Lane. Also Flora Thompson doesn't destroy her own lovely imagery by adding an addendum to the end and soiling everything.

[K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was inspired to get myself a copy of this book after being delighted with the BBC miniseries (am eagerly awaiting season 4, even if it is only partial).

I've tried to describe how this book reads, not sure I'm going to be successful here. Let's see. It's a semi-fictional (I think names of people & places are changed, no idea what else was fictionalized) auto-biography that reads like great fiction, but not in a "fiction" way at all, but in a great biography/historical document sort of way. Not making sense here? I won't belabor the point.

This is an account of a triad of small communities in British farm country from about 1880 to early 1900, as told by a girl from a tiny hamlet known as Lark Rise. She moves to another tiny village, Candleford Green as assistant in the post-office there, and then, at the end of the book, although we don't know where she goes, we know she has gone off forever to a larger place.

One funny thing about this book: it's amazing what BBC did with the material. They took names and one or two incidents from the book, but mostly the miniseries was completely new and unrelated.

A few really interesting things about this book: I loved reading about the food, she described in detail the diets (and subsequent health) of the inhabitants of the tiny hamlet of Lark Rise. They subsisted on vegetables from their gardens, pork (mostly cured), lard (which is what they spread on their bread) and the occasional poultry item, and once or twice a year joint of beef. Some of them had some honey from their own bees, some of them sent out for a little bit of milk, they bought bread from the baker (probably not much, they couldn't afford it), and their only other grain came from what they could glean in the fall--it didn't last long. Modern readers say "salt pork & lard!" why didn't they all die of heart-disease? Yet she describes the people and their healthy bone & teeth structure in detail. The people seemed to be healthy in body and in mind, with a healthy outlook on God, man and nature. I also loved reading about how they prepared and cooked their food. What would it be like to cook everything in a large kettle over an open fire? Little baskets hung inside the cauldron with the side dishes? Amazing.


I loved how Thompson described life in what seems to us to be almost an idyllic time, and yet she doesn't make it unreal. She is very candid about the fact of their poverty--food was the only thing they had enough of (good thing, too!) everything else they went without, including essentials such as heat and clothing sometimes. The reason it read so well, I think, was that Thompson was so good at just dropping the reader right into the place. Her love for her childhood home made her words sparkle and entrance.

A couple of gems from the end of the book:

"...and the row of half a dozen cottages, all exactly alike in outward appearance and inside accommodation, but differing in their degree of comfort and cleanliness. Laura wondered then, as she was often to do in her after-life, why, with houses exactly alike and incomes the same to a penny, one woman will have a cosy, tasteful little home and another something not much better than a slum dwelling." (p. 532) Interesting observation.

And, commenting on how things were looking at the turn of the century, low prices on food & necessities, rising wages, couples with more "things" and more leisure and less children and perhaps less sense of what it was to truly be a neighbor, the narrator makes this observation:

"Those were the lines along which they were developing. Spiritually, they had lost ground, rather than gained it. Their working-class forefathers had had religious or political ideals; their talk had not lost the raciness of the soil and was seasoned with native wit which, if sometimes crude, was authentic. Few of this section of their sons and daughters were churchgoers, or game much thought to religious matters. When the subject of religion was mentioned, they professed to subscribe to its dogmas and to be shocked at the questioning of the most outworn of these; but, in reality, their creed was that of keeping up appearances. The reading they did was mass reading. Before they would open a book, they had to be told it was one that everybody was reading. ...They had not a sufficient sense of humor to originate it, but borrowed it from music-hall turns and comic papers, and the voice in which such gems were repeated was flat and toneless compared to the old country speech." (p. 554)

I just thought that was interesting. Nowhere does the author speak on religious or political matters besides in passing, nor does she bemoan the change of times, but she was an acute observer of what, perhaps, has been lost in the course of progress. That agrarian lifestyle is gone, and with it a totally different breed of humble, no-nonsense, witty, hard-working, healthy people.

This book was not, as some reviewers have said, a glossed-over look into what the author remembers as the perfection of her youth. Rather a beautifully written account of life long ago.

[Jo (The Book Geek) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must state, that I only found out about this particular book, after I had finished binge watching the "Lark rise to Candleford" boxset a few years ago, and until recently, I couldn't compare the TV adaptation with the book. Well, in this case, the TV adaptation was definitely more entertaining, and had more unforgettable characters, but in other ways, I enjoyed being taken back to Candleford again with the book.

This book definitely got better as it went along, as the first few chapters felt like it was written like a report or something, which put me off, somewhat. I realise that this book is a memoir of the author, Flora Thompson, and in this book, she changes her name to Laura.

Laura doesn't take centre stage, until around the halfway point of this book, and even them, she still felt terribly detached. There seemed to be too much description of the village, and not enough going on with Laura. At times, I felt like the author had a certain moodiness to her writing, and it ricocheted back to the reader.

However, I did feel there were some moments of compassion within these pages, and it reminded me of the beloved series on TV. This book has a certain amount of charm, but not enough to keep me content.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Little House on the Prairie but with more textual awareness of poverty, class, and sexism. Also, it's set in rural Victorian England. Otherwise, just like, complete with grand tales of killing the pig and stories about getting dresses muddy on the miles-long walk to school.

[Gemma collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes,I got hoooked on the TV series and then bought the book but I have been wanting to read it for a while. When I was a child I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and Flora Thompson has that same feeling of historical detail mixed with a nostalgic sensitivity, both being told from the point of view of a child but written in adulthood many years after the events (Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie and Christy Browns Down All the Days also do this beautifully). This gives the writing a glorious sense of yearning but without being too sentimental and Thompson often checks herself with a wry comment on changing times; waxing lyrical about the happiness of the inhabitants of the hamlet she then describes quite frankly the desperate poverty of peoples lives and the infuriating rules of conduct that she saw change in her lifetime.

She puts herself as third person in the character of Laura and in this way can be quite critical of her younger self and give some idea of other peoples attitudes towards her. Thompson/Laura is a bookish, plain girl, not popular at school, a terrible dunce at needlework but clearly, from an early age addicted to reading, preferring to lose herself in any text she could get her hands on rather than playing outside with the hamlet children.

What was picked up on in the tv series is the way she never criticises openly any of her fellow beings, if someone has a fault she is always quick to point out their generosity of spirit or reasons why they behave so intolerably. They are a victim of the social system and have known nothing else or they are only doing what they think is right and are accepted as they are. Books are scarce and, cruelly it seems to us now, are hidden from her everytime she becomes too attached to them leaving her with a rapidly decreasing selection but she seems to accept this was just her mothers way of protecting her and never condemns her for what must have seemed a great injustice to a curious young girl.

For details of how people really lived in the 1890's it is absolutely fascinating especially as society was rapidly changing at this time at the beginning of the industrial revolution. The descriptions of English countryside are delicious and nostalgic, describing an England that can rarely be found now and the whole thing is made somehow more poignant by the knowledge (alluded to at intervals) of the coming World War which would change everything irredeemably, the small hamlet losing a large percentage of its young men in one fell swoop. The time captured so beautifully in these three pieces - Lark Rise, Over to Candleford and Candleford Green - is a time poised on the brink of change and now, England having seen such rapid social changes once again since the publication of Thompsons book in the 30's is not just a useful documentation of how far we have come but also how things were and could be again.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am entirely willing to admit that I read this book because of the TV series - but I wasn't at all disappointed that so few of the relationships in the series are here. Laura and her family, life in the hamlet, life in the town, are so much more vivid than I expected in a book that does little more than describe the basics of life at the end of the 19th century in rural England, that I cannot wish Thompson had more of a narrative arc in the three books that make up this book.

I don't think I've ever wanted to call a book lyrical before, but this one is - if something that is so much like listening to the symphony can be called lyrical. I have read nothing like it. As the introduction in my version said, there are very few novels that tell the story of poor Victorian people from within their world. Even though Thompson was writing at a remove of many years, and during the Second World War to boot, she is speaking much more immediately than was Gaskell or Dickens or any of the later writers. She approaches poverty as something neither holy nor horrible, rather just a harsh fact. She does lament the loss of rural games, although some of those she mentioned were familiar to me as playground games. There is a fineness to her writing that stirred up memories of The Secret Garden but without that preachiness, Austen without archness, Milne without silliness. Perhaps Little House would be closest, because of the willingness to admit to the harsh and non-idyllic but this is more like oral history than reminiscence.

If you are irritated by repetition, this is not the book for you - as it began as three books there are quite a few sections that repeat with varied levels of detail. If you don't like listening to people talk about how-it-was-then, it's not for you either. However, if you just like to read about history, or about a girl who just wants something more than she is ever likely to get out of the time and place where she lives, it's worth the read.

[Mela · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an interesting case. Reading the parts of the trilogy as standalone novels I gave them 4 stars. But when I finished it I saw suddenly the hidden level in them (I am not sure if Flora Thompson did it consciously).

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away

The whole trilogy was a memorial of be-gone habits, culture, times, people. And it was a wonderful, moving and priceless memoir.

I admitted in the beginning, I saw as a flaw that there was little plot around the main characters. Now I see that it was just so because the center of gravity was on a collective hero. Later, the collective hero was more and more transformed into individual heroes. It looked like a metaphor of changing times when the individualism gained the matter. With this, the communities started dying.

So, in the end, the trilogy deserve 5 stars from me (although each part separately remains with 4 stars). Moreover, I feel I would like to read it again someday.

[Plateresca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This trilogy is described as 'semi-autobiographical', which means that it combines documentary observations with a fictionalized narrative, so it's neither fiction nor non-fiction, but something quite original in between. The narrative voice of these books is very peculiar, too: we see the world of rural Victorian England seemingly through the eyes of a child, but at the same time through the lens of the grown-ups appreciation for history and detail.

This work has been called therapeutic and healing in various articles and I agree. Things are simple in this world, people are resilient and self-reliant, nature is beautiful - there are lots of poignant descriptions of nature in various seasons and of multiple plants - and food is simple, fresh and delicious. There are difficulties, but the choices are mostly clear.

That said, Lark Rise, Candleford and Candleford Green are not paradisiacal. The living conditions at Lark Rise are basically unsanitary, for one. Mothers prefer their sons to daughters and tend to kick the latter out as soon as these can earn their living, at the age of eleven...

Emotional spoilers:
Pigs are killed for food, this is a part of rural life, so there are a couple of mentions of it throughout the book, - not extremely gory, but unpleasant, of course. But these are accompanied by the protagonist's pity for the pig, it is a description rather than a celebration. Hunting is often mentioned, but not described; a few cases of poaching are briefly described, more or less with sympathy towards animals. The author seems to have less sympathy for the plants she describes so well: there are a lot of descriptions of how people gathered enormous amounts of wildflowers and not a hint of sadness on this point (I suppose many are extinct by now).

Very few events happen in the course of this trilogy, but it's still an interesting read. I enjoyed 'Over to Candleford' more than 'Lark Rise', and 'Candleford Green' more than all of them, because the last one is the most personal, the protagonist is more grown-up, it has more workplace situations and also it has the character of a strong and independent woman.

All in all, a nice read for difficult times, especially if you find reading about the English countryside soothing.

[Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novela costumbrista en la que la autora, trasunto de la narradora nos relata la vida en una pequeña aldea cerca de Oxford, en la época victoriana. Para mí demasiado meticulosa y a veces repetitiva.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to some of my co-workers, I was definitely pulled into the BBC series that was based upon this three-in-one book written by Flora Thompson, who was sharing her experiences growing up in the Oxfordshir hamlet of Juniper, which she renamed Lark Rise, and finding employment as she trained under the postmistress, her cousin Dorcas, in the nearby town of Candleford. Flora, who calls herself Laura throughout the book, has a good eye for detail and is able to share the information of what it was like to live in the area in the 1880's and 1890's in a way that is both informative and educational.

The television show is not a direct transition from the text. While Flora/Laura does look back in time, the books are arranged in chapters that are less chronological in nature and more focused on specific aspects of the hamlet/town culture. This includes examinations of schooling, religion, clothes, and work, among many others. As a result, the book is focused a bit less on specific characters and more on a social overview, though readers will recognize a number of the names mentioned throughout the volume as well as some of the specific stories presented in various episodes of the show.

The television show definitely takes some dramatic liberty with the content of the books, but that is to be expected. I was glad to read the text to get a better sense of the real people who lived around Flora/Laura, and I liked having a chance to see what really happened to them.

In some ways, these books have a feel that is not unlike the "Little House on the Prairie" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, though the text is more challenging in vocabulary and reading level. That should not surprise me since I have found a lot in common between the two resulting television shows. Readers do have to be aware that there are variations between the two formats (print and television), but I have a feeling that fans of the show will also like the books. It is worth giving them a try.

[Angela Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never read the sequels but I loved this book. The pace is so gentle and the book itself is gentle: Flora Thompson's slow, descriptive style is a way of writing that's vanished in this fast-moving world of ours where we feel cheated if the first sentences of a novel don't immediately make a bid for our attention. The sixth word in the first sentence of Lark Rise is gentle:

'The hamlet stood on a gentle rise in the flat, wheat-growing north-east corner of Oxfordshire. We will call it Lark Rise because of the great number of skylarks which made the surrounding fields their springboard and nested on the bare earth between the rows of green corn.'

And the gentle description of the countryside continues for eleven paragraphs before we meet Laura and her family. But by then images of this particular part of the countryside have been laid down in the the reader's brain and a sense that real people live on this land, work it, love it and struggle with it. I don't know when Thompson wrote the book but I do know that it was first published in 1945 so perhaps this hymn to the English countryside was a reaction to the horrors of war.

For long winter nights when there's nothing on television (or when you decide to ignore the television).

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I had found the BBC production of "Lark Rise to Candleford" so very endearing. The book is quite different from the series, however, but has a very similar tone.

Whilst the show is episodic and has a loose overarching storyline which underpins each season, the book itself is almost entirely lacking in plot.
It is very good writing indeed which can hold my attention for 537 pages when those pages are filled with description and anecdotes.

I soaked up every word as it delved into the history of everyday life of the 1880's to 1890's told through the autobiographical lens of Laura. Whilst many historical books present facts and details as found through second-hand evidence, this is history as someone actually experienced it and remembered it with fondness. You learn of what games children played, what men and women did for their own amusement and entertainment, the societal attitudes and structure in the rural villages of England, fashion, what people ate and how it was served up, the importance of the pig, and much, much more detail.

It was a lovely saunter through a time before industrialisation and a memoir I am sure to revisit when I long for simpler times.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you loved Little House on the Prairie when you were a little girl and love all the Masterpiece Theater productions (like Cranford especially) and eagerly await each and every Jane Austen adaptation you are in for a treat. If you also like long novels you won't be dissapointed. This is not an exciting novel. It's not at all thrilling, but neither is it sappy or mushy-gushy. It's actually a realistic barely-disguised memoir of an English lady who grew up in a poor country hamlet. I've just finished reading this version which contains all three novels of the trilogy and feel refreshed and charmed. I feel like I've just returned from what people are always in old novels calling "a rest cure". I escaped from the harsh, modern, maddeningly real world for a time. I should say this book is rather a lot like The Cranford Chronicles in that it's sort of plotless but unlike, Cranford, this one has a definate forward motion as our heroine grows up. It is chronologically sound. It's not even so much about the heroine as it is about the people and places around her. I suppose this sort of work has a limited sort of audience, and I suppose you all know who you are, but you're all out there, like me, needing this sort of English country charm now and then.

[Julie Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

My daughter is reading my copy of this book and I realized it is perfect gentle reading for troubled times. I was, therefore, delighted to see there is a Kindle version for only $2.99. Now I will be occasionally dipping into this soothing, fascinating look at bygone days. It will live permanently on my Kindle for that purpose.

=====
This is probably my third time reading this trilogy. I used to keep it in my desk at work for lunchtime reading when there was no one else in the break room.

These three books are chronicles of small village, larger village, and small town life in rural England in the late 1800s. Told with fictionalized names this is nonetheless acknowledged to be a good record of what life was really like back then, from the farming/working class point of view. As such, Thompson didn't populate it with a main story line but centered it on one family (her own, one presumes) and then told all she had observed growing up. We see working habits, tavern stories and songs, pig killing day, and much more. In a sense, I suppose one could call it "Little House" stories for grown ups - set in Britain.

The rhythm of life gently washes over the reader and, if one isn't too worried about driving storylines as I mentioned, then there is a great reward in these books. They are perfect for unforced reading whenever one has a chance.

I was unaware that there was a television series based on these until reading some of the other GoodReads reviews. No wonder many of them were slightly disappointed. There would have to be a great deal of "reading into" to get storylines for the Lark Rise village setting. I've also seen a variety of rather judgmental reviews commenting on sexism, politics, and so forth. Those entirely miss the point of history, for one thing, and of these books, for another.

Here is an excellent overall review for anyone who'd like an overview.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this book since I was first introduced to it in 1979.....so many times that I had to buy a new copy, the old one was so tatty.
I’m not sure what it is about this particular book that I like so much, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be to everyones taste, but Laura, the young girl who tells the story of her growing up in a 19th Century corner of rural England, captured my heart on my first reading, and she has become like an old friend.
The trilogy is based on the authors own life in a tiny hamlet in Oxfordshire, where her world consists of the hamlet, a nearby little village where she goes to school, and a small market town, nearby by our own standards, but quite a way away by Laura’s thinking, when the only ways of getting there were on foot, or the very occasional use of a horse and cart.
This is a slow moving story, full of the details of the everyday life of people whose poverty meant counting every half penny, making do and mending, and just plain doing without, whilst working hard from dawn to dusk, without any of the conveniences we take for granted.
It’s not a depressing story though, its full of interesting characters and details of a time gone by.
As the reader follows Laura from her school days, to her first job in the nearby town post office, I think the book gets better and better, and I enjoyed it just as much this time as I did all those years ago.

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was glad I read several reviews before reading this book, telling me not to expect it to be anything like the beloved BBC series. Only a few of the characters and storylines from Thompson's autobiography (veiled as a novel) appear in the series. Even so I enjoyed picturing Alf, Queenie, the squire, Emma, etc. whenever they came on the scene.

My illustrated edition had the three "novels" combined (Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green) and included photos from the time period and lovely prints of country scenes. But it read more like a memoir, weaving together facts about village life with the names of actual families at the turn of the 19th century.

Thompson writes, "All times are times of transition; but the 1880's were so in a special sense, for the world was at the beginning of a new era, the era of machinery and scientific discovery. Values and conditions of life were changing everywhere." And so she winsomely describes the vanishing country customs she witnessed in her childhood, preserving them forever in her writings.

I enjoyed reading about Laura's close relationship with her preacher grandfather. I also appreciated the details of religious and academic life in the villages that are largely left out of the TV series.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Setting: Oxfordshire, UK; 1890's-early 1900's.
This is a semi-autobiographical tale with the main character Laura taking the place of the author herself and detailing her upbringing in a small Oxfordshire hamlet in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century.
The author describes life in the hamlet and nearby village, and later in the adjacent town and suburb of Candleford and Candleford Green, in painstaking detail which is both absorbing and enlightening. Through the eyes of Laura, from childhood through to late teenage years, we see family life and life in the various communities, the changing landscape and the gradual change of society as the years progress.
The book is far more detailed in its observations of country life than the TV adaptation which I recall seeing many years ago and it is apparent that the detailed descriptions in the book made for better reading than they would of viewing, provided of course you like plenty of descriptive writing! This book is in fact a trilogy under one cover and title, written by the author over the course of World War Two. The book is not particularly character-driven - certainly the characters take almost a back-seat role to descriptions of rural life in the first two books until Laura and some other characters come more into their own after she starts working at Dorcas Lane's post office in Candleford Green from the tender age of 14 years.
Overall, I enjoyed the read although I was a bit disappointed in the ending - 8/10.

[Encarni Prados · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro muy bien escrito y primordial para conocer cómo se vivía en la época victoriana en el campo británico. La escritora narra su vida a través de Laura, un personaje autobiográfico que cuenta desde que tiene recuerdos, hasta su adolescencia. Narrado con gran sencillez Flora Thompson, desconocida para mi hasta que vi el libro en casa de mi cuñada y me encantó por la portada, como ella ya lo había leído, se vino conmigo a casa y hoy lo he terminado. Una novela costumbrista donde aprendes como era la vida de los más pobres, cómo hacían malabares para mantener a su numerosa prole y vestirlos lo más decentemente posible. Una época donde la mayoría del pueblo eran agricultores, las hijas adolescentes se marchaban a servir y los hijos se iban colocando y dejando hueco para otro hermano más pequeño en la cama.
Narrado con mucha sencillez y de forma amena, una historia que, sin dura, recomiendo.

[Suzie Berendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful beautiful book. My Grandma’s favourite and one of my Gran’s favourite books so this felt extra special to read. Its slow pace meant I found it slightly hard to get into, but as I got used to the descriptive style of Flora Thompson’s writing I began to love it. Following her life from the Hamlet ‘Lark Rise’ to the village of Candleford, it gave such an amazing insight to life in the late 20th century. How much things changed so much in those years even though change was slower, especially in these hamlets. So many parallels with the modern era, the opinionated voices about new houses being built, village gossip about anything and anyone, local politics, male cycling groups trying to prove how many miles they could do. This book felt like an escape to quiet, slow country living

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

from imdb - An adaptation of Flora Thompson's autobiographical novel "Lark Rise To Candleford", set in 19 century Oxfordshire, in which a young girl moves to the local market town to begin an apprenticeship as a postmistress.

This is Thompson writing in Austen's 'Emma' mode, executing her fictionalised autobiography. After a while the self-righteous moralising tone palls, however it is well worth a dip-in.

[Sherrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This classic by Flora Thompson is a trilogy published as one novel about 80 years ago. Its a nostalgic but realistic biography about her childhood in the late 1800's. This particular book had fabulous photos and illustrations from a bygone age.

[Dianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is like being transported to the 1880s in rural England.

[Linda Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it really fiction? It reads like a memoir told in third person, with names changed. There may be some fictional elements, but Flora Thompson told about her own life, changing the name of the main character to Laura. She may have embellished enough to be unable to call this a real memoir, but it doesn't read like fiction.

Regardless of the genre confusion, this three-book series (published as one volume since 1945) is precious as it encapsulates a place and time that we otherwise would have no record of - at least, no record so richly detailed as what Flora Thompson left for us. She told us about her family, her neighbors, her environment, cultural habits, and many, many incidents that brought color to the narrative - obviously things she remembered from her childhood and teen years.

The TV show of the same name is full of spoilers, so it is best to read the books first. Well worth the time and effort! They are wonderful, amazing historical documents!