Portrait of a Village

by Francis Brett Young

Portrait of a Village

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1937

About the author

Francis Brett Young was born in 1884 at Hales Owen, Worcestershire, the eldest son of Dr Thomas Brett Young.

Educated at Iona Cottage High School, Sutton Coldfield and Epsom College, Francis read Medicine at Birmingham University before entering general practice at Brixham in 1907. The following year he married Jessie Hankinson whom he had met during his medical studies. She was a singer of some repute, having appeared as a soloist in Henry Wood's Promenade Concerts.

Francis based one of his earliest novels Deep Sea (1914) in Brixham but was soon to be caught up in the Great War. He served in the R.A.M.C. in East Africa, experiences recorded in Marching on Tanga.

After the war Francis and Jessie went to live in Capri where a number of novels with African as well as English backgrounds were produced. Popular success came in 1927 when Francis was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Portrait of Clare.

The Brett Youngs returned to England in 1929, staying for a while in the Lake District before settling at Craycombe House in Worcestershire in 1932. During this period Francis was at the height of his fame and his annually produced novels were eagerly awaited.

During the Second World War Francis laboured on his long poem covering the spread of English history from prehistoric times. Entitled The Island, it was published in 1944 and regarded by Francis as his greatest achievement.

Following a breakdown in his health Francis and Jessie moved to South Africa where he died in 1954. His ashes were brought back to this country and interred in Worcester Cathedral.

Reviews

[Teaspoon Stories · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to the special wrapper on the front cover, this was the Book Society Christmas Choice for 1937. This rather surprised me given Francis Brett Young’s predilection for gloomy story lines. I hadn’t previously thought of Francis Brett Young as a purveyor of seasonal cheer.

But this book turned out to be rather different to other novels of his that I’d read. My copy’s a very handsome first edition with wonderful original woodcuts of village life by Joan Hassall - a nostalgic world of cricket matches, bee hives, barns, hay carts, cottages and churches. It only cost me a fiver at the local antiques centre. Francis Brett Young clearly isn’t the Book Society Christmas Choice this year.

It’s a rural diary of a fictional village in Worcestershire called Monk’s Norton. The village has a beautifully crafted back-history and a hand-drawn map that traces the action from grange to church, pub to forge, school house to water mill.

Francis Brett Young’s usual pessimism gives over to wistfulness, his sense of bitterness dissolves into nostalgia. Change - in the form of allotments, fast cars and electricity - isn’t always for the better. Rural tradition holds firm and life goes on as it has done for centuries.

And yet … the village church isn’t maintained as it ought to be, the wrong kind of people have moved into the big house, and the oak tree in the village green is sadly stricken.

And so it seems that storm clouds are gathering even over peaceful, secluded Monk’s Norton. Within two years of this book being the Christmas bestseller, the world will be plunged into war again - and the world, and Monk’s Norton, will change forever.

“Portrait of a Village” reminded me why I treasure books by Francis Brett Young - and why his books were such popular Book Society Choices in the 1930s. His writing is serious but accessible, entertaining but thoughtful, rooted in the pity and futility of the previous world war and growing towards the dark shadows of the next one.

[Hana]

This just arrived at my Brookline Library branch with an unusual caveat: I have to read it in the library rather than checking it out. The illustrations were lovely and I was excited to read something that is that hard to get--and to go back to the old world in which books were so valuable that they were chained to desks.

I've got two weeks to enjoy this treasure. I'll keep you all posted.

[Ruth D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great!