Editions

Dreams of the Good Life

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780141044811

  • Length: 240  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 14mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 179g

  • RRP: £12.99

Dreams of the Good Life

  • The Life of Flora Thompson and the Creation of Lark Rise to Candleford

While the Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, Flora Thompson's much-loved portrait of life in the English countryside, has inspired a hit television series, relatively little is known about the author herself. In this highly original book, bestselling biographer and nature writer Richard Mabey sympathetically retraces her life and her transformation from a post-office clerk who left school at fourteen to a sophisticated professional writer. Revealing how a formidable imagination can arise from the humblest of beginnings, Dreams of the Good Life paints a poignant, unforgettable portrait of a working-class woman writer's struggle for creative expression.

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780141044811

  • Length: 240  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 14mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 179g

  • RRP: £12.99

Reviews

  • Terrific . . . what makes Mabey's appreciation of Lark Rise's shape-shifting so compelling is that he never makes the mistake of thinking that the original was summoned up by some act of the collective unconscious. Instead, he reminds us of Thompson's awkward and patient achievement, as the sole creator of a bona fide work of art

    Guardian

  • It seems unlikely we shall ever get closer to the woman who wrote Lark Rise to Candleford

    Sunday Times

  • Dreams Of The Good Life is a gem of a book, small, perfectly formed, informative and, as his title suggests, dreamy

    Sunday Herald

More from this Author

View all View all
View all View all

About the Author

Richard Mabey

Richard Mabey is the acclaimed author of some thirty books including Gilbert White, which won the Whitbread Biography Award in 1986, Flora Britannica (1995), winner of a National Book Award, and Nature Cure (2005), which was short-listed for three major literary awards, the Whitbread, Ondaatje, and J.R. Ackerley prizes. He writes for the Guardian, New Statesman and Granta, and contributes frequently to BBC radio. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Richard Mabey

Read more

/content/dam/prh/articles/adults/2020/august/nature-books-main-image-1800x1200.jpg

Recommendations

Books for nature lovers

The very best nature writing has the power to move us, to replenish us and to remind us just how much we owe the planet we're now destroying.

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience. For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.