The team
Angela Hicken
Madelaine - the book thief
Penny
Rose Ratcliffe
Rachel the editor
Jane the Archivist
Cordelia Gray
Friday Next
Jacky Percival
Other teams
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
Finds
- And here is one we missed
- And, finally, one for Hallowe'en
- How did we miss this one?
- John Wyndham's Hampshire connection
- Reading the countryside
- New Milton's new Milton
- Heywood Sumner in South Gorley
- PG Wodehouse in Emsworth
- Walking In My Sleep
- Nicola Slade's Victorian Mysteries
- England's Lost Eden
- June Tate
- Bullington
- Speed The Plough: A Country Song
- A Hampshire scarecrow: Worzel Gummidge
- Queens Arms
- Haslar Hospital Memories
- Magical writing for children
- Inspired by the Tichborne Claimant
- Gypsy Girl Trilogy
- Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) and The Natural History of Selborne
- Coffee with Date and Walnut Loaf
- The Play Room
- Kipling's dislikes
- Deadman's Plack
- Netley Abbey Ruins
- Portsea Sagas
- Lilian Harry's Family Connections
- Crossing the Bar
- John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier
- Growing up in Portsmouth
- More Edward Thomas
- Two blokes and a shed
- In the shadow of the Cathedral
- Hampshire Days
- Mr Hardy Writes a Poem
- "Steep" is apt
- Thackeray in Fareham
- Forgotten Favourite?
- Daniel Clay's 'Broken'
- Pell and Tess
- Edward Thomas and Froxfield
- Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire
- Rebecca Smith
- Right of Access
- Hampshire songs, poems, and ditties
- In this house
- Words & Walks
- England, Their England
- An Ode to a Road
- The story of a house
- Crime Connections to the City
- John Keat's Ode to Autumn
- William Lisle Bowles, poet
- Future Princes of Winchester
- Spike Island by Philip Hoare
- The marriage of souls
- Rural Rides: William Cobbett
- Elinor Brent-Dyer remembered
- Dornford Yates' Hampshire connection
- The Marlows, their maker and stealing a corner of Dorset
- Saint Cross: England's Oldest Almshouse
- Winchester the whole day through
- HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON
- Otterbourne's Enid Blyton? Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901)
- Odo's Hanging is missing
- The Warden
- Charles Kingsley's Letters
- Owslebury Bottom
- See it My Way
- Introduction to Melesina Trench
- Some Hampshire road signs read Jane Austen Country
- Flora Thompson: published poet
Recent posts
- Virginia Smith remembered
- Mary Sumner
- A272: An Ode to a Road (by Andy)
- The hunt continues
- Winchester MP Mark Oaten to publish book
- Chalet School
- Bags of Books and Enthusiasm
- Chalet School author
- Poetry in the pub
- Wealth of words in Winchester
- Hampshire Gets Going
Help the team
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