The Rural Tradition in the English Novel 1900–1939

A mordant parable of the divorce between town and country can be found in John Christopher's novel The Guardians, a book for children published in 1970. Set in the future, it portrays an England divided rigidly into urban and rural ways of life: the Conurbs, conformist, mechanised, gregarious and imaginatively stifling; and the County, gradous, conservative, quiet and apparently free. The County embodies the longing for beauty and order, spontaneity and freedom of spirit, that the country has come to mean in the experience of dty dwellers. But this peace is had at a price. The two worlds must never meet; and the County is preserved from contact with the Conurb by the Guardians, a ruling elite who maintain its idyllic tranquillity by operating on the brains of all those restless and imaginative enough to seek to break the barrier between the two worlds: peace and order are secured by a process of spiritual gelding. The fable is apt.! Arcadia is a dangerous prOvince to evoke, for to do so always involves leaving something out. But such fragmentation has for a long time been apparent in literature. By the beginning of the twentieth century the compendious allpurpose three-volume family novels of the great Victorian writers had had their day. The reading public demanded shorter works of more spedalised appeal: 'Sodety' novels, such as those of Ada Leverson and E. F. Benson, or historical novels like those of Stanley Weyman. There were urban novels and there were rural novels. Of these it was the urban novel which proved most lasting in appeal and productive of the most important work. Dickens's Our Mutual Friend (1865) may be seen as the precursor of such deliberate treatments of dty life as James's The Princess Casamassima (1886), Gissing's The Front Matter....Pages i-xiii The Land and the City....Pages 1-13 Problems of the Rural Novelist: E. C. Booth....Pages 14-25 Rural Fantasies: Kenneth Grahame, T. H. White and others....Pages 26-45 The Cult of the Primitive: Eden Phillpotts, John Trevena....Pages 46-65 Literary Regionalism: Hugh Walpole, Sheila Kaye-Smith....Pages 66-80 Town and Country: Francis Brett Young, Winifred Holtby....Pages 81-100 Farmer Novelists: H. W. Freeman, A. G. Street, Adrian Bell....Pages 101-117 The Land of Lost Content: Henry Williamson, Llewelyn Powys....Pages 118-132 Romantic Landscapes: Mary Webb, E. H. Young....Pages 133-156 A Land of One’s Own: Constance Holme....Pages 157-172 Rural Symbolism: T. F. Powys....Pages 173-195 The Enduring Land: H. E. Bates....Pages 196-200 Conclusion: The Earth and the Land....Pages 201-209 Back Matter....Pages 211-240