Heatherley

About the Book: Flora Thompson was born in 1876 at Juniper Hill on the Oxfordshire/Northamptonshire border. She is best known as the author of Lark Rise to Candleford, that classic and evocative observation of her rural childhood which has been a best-seller since its publication in 1945.
That story ends with her leaving her native Oxfordshire in 1897 for pastures new. In Heatherley she picks up the story again when she takes her first permanent post in Grayshott, a village on the Hampshire/Surrey border.
Here she describes her surprise at entering a different world - a new settlement placed amid wild heather-clad hilltops compared with the old-established village set in the heavy, flat, agricultural landscape of her childhood.
For those who have been enchanted by her earlier work, the continuing story as 'Laura goes farther' will be compulsive reading.

From the publisher: In producing this new edition of Heatherley to mark the centenary of Flora's arrival in Hampshire, we have reviewed her original typescript alongside the version edited by Margaret Lane and previously published by Oxford University Press.
This has enabled us to correct a small number of errors which had occurred in that transcription, and occasionally to revert to Flora's phraseology and punctuation where we felt this was better than in the amended version.
We have also looked at a number of her earlier typescript drafts, some of which (including the 'new' chapter) were discovered in the last few years by Flora's biographer Gillian Lindsay, and this has allowed us to add information which the previous version did not contain-and the publisher's own historical research has provided notes into the people and places Flora would have known while she was in 'Heatherley' during the years 1898-1901.

Reviews: Unlike the well-known 'Lark Rise to Candleford' trilogy, this later semi-autobiographical work was never published in Flora Thompson's lifetime. What makes this edition of 'Heatherley' particularly interesting is the footnotes and additional material, giving information about the people on whom she based her fictional characters. The publishers have taken
great pains to consult Flora Thompson's original typescript for this edition, as well as earlier drafts which include an extra chapter, and thus have produced a fascinating document which could be read both for the story and for the background that it gives to the life of this village at the turn of the last century.
- Kathy Lemaire - School Librarian - Vol 47, Number 2, Summer 1999

Published by Headley author and historian, John Owen Smith, with delightful pen and ink illustrations by Hester Whittle of Headley Down, the foreword has been written by Anne Mallinson, who for years has sought to promote the work of Flora Thompson from her former bookshop at Selborne and via local literary societies. Mrs Mallinson, whose own research was helped considerably by the late eminent biographer, Margaret Lane, offers a remarkable insight into the work of Flora
Thompson which will add to the reader's enjoyment and understanding of this and other works.
-Alton Herald - 5th March 1999

To buy the book, and for more information, please visit: http://www.headley1.demon.co.uk/

How to contact the author: wordsmith@headley1.demon.co.uk

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