England's Lost Eden Find!

A superb book from our local 'Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction' Winner Philip Hoare. 

"This is a terrific idiosyncratic piece of popular history" Sunday Times

'England's Lost Eden: Adventures in Victorian Utopia' is about the history of the Girlingites, a bizarre Christian sect which for a short time caused a sensation in Victorian England. In the telling of the tale of Mary Ann Girling and her devoted followers, Philip Hoare manages to touch upon a wide range of related issues, including spiritualism, Shakerism, and the numerous utopian projects that erupted in nineteenth-century Europe and in the New World.

The in-depth study of Girlingism also brings to light some intriguing connections between people, places, and the issue of belief which vexed the age: eminent Victorians like John Ruskin, William and Georgiana Cowper, Oscar and Constance Wilde; all manner of characters, such as Andrew Peterson who erected a 200-foot spiritual tower near Sway in The New Forest, a monument to Thomas Paine (supposedly designed by Christopher Wren from beyond the grave), and Auberon Herbert and his ramshackle forest retreat bursting with books and flints.

21 October 2009 from Angela Hicken

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