For centuries the English lived on the land and even today, as cities encroach further and further on the remaining green fields and the number of working country villages dwindles, there is still a particularly powerful feeling for the countryside. This anthology, edited and introduced by novelist Joanna Trollope, spans the centuries and aims to evoke both the dream and the reality, from Anglo-Saxon laments to Tudor husbandry, and from Regency fetes-champetres to pre-war tennis parties.

The extracts are drawn from private journals and letters as well as the work of writers such as Jane Austen, Laurie Lee, Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Christopher Marlowe and William Wordsworth.