The Coloured Counties: Literary Landscapes of the Heart of England

Anthony Gibson explores the counties of Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire, finding the places that inspired such writers as Laurie Lee, Robert Frost, George Eliot, AE Housman, Ivor Gurney, Mary Webb, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Bruce Chatwin, William Shakespeare, Richard Jefferies, Edward Thomas, Walter Scott, John Moore, Flora Thompson, Will Harvey, Matthew Arnold, Robert Bridges, Frank Mansell, John Drinkwater, JRR Tolkien, John Betjeman, John Masefield, Robert Graves, William Langland, Wilfred Owen, Dennis Potter, Winifred Foley, Rupert Brooke, Edmund Blunden, Thomas Hughes, GK Chesterton, Thomas Hardy, Fred Archer, Lascelles Abercrombie, Wilfrid Gibson, William Wordsworth, Arthur Quiller-Couch, WH Auden and Francis Kilvert. Featuring many colour photographs, extracts from the writers, recommended walks, even the best places to stop for a drink, the book is an uplifting journey for those who love both literature and the English countryside - and Anthony Gibson, with his appreciation of great writing and his farming background, is the perfect companion.