Dreams of the Good Life: The Life of Flora Thompson and the Creation of Lark Rise to Candleford

by Richard Mabey

While the Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, Flora Thompson's much-loved portrait of life in the English countryside, has inspired a hit television series, relatively little is known about the author herself. In this highly original book, bestselling biographer and nature writer Richard Mabey sympathetically retraces her life and her transformation from a post-office clerk who left school at fourteen to a sophisticated professional writer. Revealing how a formidable imagination can arise from the humblest of beginnings, Dreams of the Good Life paints a poignant, unforgettable portrait of a working-class woman writer's struggle for creative expression.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 6, 2014

About the author

Richard Mabey is one of England's greatest nature writers. He is author of some thirty books including Nature Cure which was shortlisted for the Whitbread, Ondaatje and Ackerley Awards.

A regular commentator on the radio and in the national press, he is also a Director of the arts and conservation charity Common Ground and Vice-President of the Open Spaces Society. He lives in Norfolk.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flora Thompson is celebrated for her Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, which, like so many, I know only through the recent BBC production (though I also have it sitting on my shelf to read). Born Flora Timms in rural Oxfordshire in 1876, she infused her novels with a surprising weight of autobiographical material. Indeed, “Flora was weaving romance around her life from its very inception” but “never attempted to write either a straight memoir or objective social history.” However, with the same family makeup and post office career, Lark Rise’s “Laura Timms” is a fairly obvious stand-in for the author; as Mabey writes, she is “both the principal character and Flora’s ventriloquial narrator. This makes for a frustrating and detached story at times.”

Without a doubt, the Flora/Laura divide is the most frustrating thing about Mabey’s biography. He has a confusing tendency of switching between the two names even when he’s talking about the historical figure’s life. Mabey seems to have bought wholesale into the idea that Laura is, in every case, identical to Flora, even though the truth is surely more nuanced. Although there is a limited amount of documentary evidence from Thompson’s life (most of her letters have been lost; what few artifacts remain are in the University of Texas archives), Mabey would still have been better off considering where her life diverged from her protagonist’s, instead of lumping their experiences together. I also found something faintly patronizing about Mabey’s habit of referring to Thompson solely as “Flora” – reinforcing the idea that she was some delicate lady novelist rather than a serious writer with important ideas.

In fact, Thompson was an influential late Victorian who moved in the same literary circle as Arthur Conan Doyle and Alfred Tennyson, all part of the “Hilltop Writers” colony in Surrey. She started off writing prize-winning essays on Emily Brontë and Shakespeare’s Juliet for the Lady’s Companion. The Boer War and Queen Victoria’s death were major events in her early writing life, and her brother Edwin (“Edmund” in Lark Rise) died in the First World War. Her novels might be classed as Hardyesque in that they represent a last gasp for the pastoral tradition in literature; Mabey suggests hers might be the last novel to contain an account of gleaning. But it is Gilbert White (of whom he has also written a biography) who Mabey thinks she most resembles: their discursive writing, full of references to nature, fictionalizes a quaint British village setting. (Mabey left me unsure whether Thompson’s reputedly purple prose makes her a product of her time, or represents a deliberate parody.)

Another comparison I found quite telling was with Laura Ingalls Wilder, who, like Thompson, also wrote a fictionalized account of her rural childhood – but only when she was in her sixties, living far from the beloved land she was describing. Mabey concludes that “Lark Rise is paramount as a tribute to rural women...and what they were capable of.” I think the same might be said of the Little House books. Likewise, both series’ power comes from an “interweaving of an essentially childlike vision with an adult voice” (quoting Juliet Dusinberre).

This short biographical study will be a must for anyone who has read and enjoyed Lark Rise to Candleford. For someone whose minor interest only results from watching the costume drama, though, it may be difficult to sustain attention.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointingly bare of details of Thompson’s life, with much recounting of the plots of her novel/memoirs with the caveat that Laura is not strictly modeled on Flora. Even a basic “lived here, moved here, so-and-so died” timeline might have been helpful - at one point, the fact that three little siblings died under the age of four (or vice versa) is mentioned but they were never mentioned before, or named, and are only addressed as important because the section is discussing Thompson’s avoidance of the discussion of deaths of non-elderly people in her books. While Mabey is frustrated with critics who dismiss Thompson’s work, he is often dismissive of her, oddly attentive to and judgmental about her physical appearance in photos, and at one point weirdly certain that her recollection of folk songs was impossible and this must have been boosted by reading collected volumes of such songs. That’s odd because songs are just about the easiest thing to remember, often perfectly, even from early youth, and Thompson was growing up in a much more oral culture than our own. I have no reason to assume that Thompson was not quite gifted, and early memorization is hardly startling in that case. Regardless, it’s just one example of the odd dismissive posture Mabey takes in order to differentiate himself from romantic dreamy rural idyll focused non-critics. This book is not bad as a literary essay, it’s just not the biography its subtitle suggests.

[Bettie]

I marked this Mabey as maybe:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014...

what would Dorcas Lane do?

[Kay Kanbayashi · Rating 3 out of 5]

After watching the first season of Lark Rise to Candleford, I was keen on learning more about the author. Not being sure of what to expect from Mabey, I did enjoy learning about England's rural life at the turn of the century, with Mabey citing different sources and authors of that period, as well as excerpts from Thompson's own writing. However, I didn't feel I truly got what I was hoping for from this book - I felt I was reading an essay and study of the English countryside, with snip-its of a timeline of Thompson's writings, and a comparison between herself and all her characters to gleam a sense of who she was. But II didn't feel I truly got the essence nor a full dimensional rendering of Flora Thompson. I was left with more questions about the author and her life, and wishing there were reflective thoughts from other anecdotal stories passed down from family and friends to truly understand the breadth and complexities of her mind and spirit.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Lark Rise to Candleford many years ago and loved it when recently reading it again, so as is my wont, I had to read a biography of Thompson. Was Lark Rise an autobiography, a memoir, fictionalised remembrances? Why do we “trust” memoirs more than fiction? Why do we want the autobiographical witting to be true and have documentary evidence to support the writing? Was it a collection of short pieces published in journals?

Like Little House, Lark Rise is crafted fiction drawn from the lived experience of the author but crafted for a time and audience. (WWII with the need to hark back to a time when community supported another and with the restorative power of nature.)

While Mabey showed how Thompson was a skilled writer, who laboured and grew at her craft with persistence, I still feel that Thompson as a person is a little shadowy. Maybe that is how she will stay.

A minor note: I do hate it when authors talk about a picture of the subject but don’t provide it.

[DrJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was lent this by a colleague who said she really enjoyed it so it was highly recommended. I rarely read a non-fiction book from cover to cover, but I wanted to know more about the author of "Lark Rise to Candleford". There were parts early on where I felt Mabey was a little condescending about Thompson, not quite fully acknowledging the time she was writing in, but he's much more nuanced towards the end. He also goes off on tangents which personally I didn't find that interesting. It's quite a short book, so without these it would be even shorter, which might explain their inclusion! But towards the end when we have much more information about Thompson's life, and there is a greater focus on her writing of "Lark Rise" I enjoyed it much more.

[Helbob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the tv drama Lark Rise to Candleford. I feel
like I could do with something comforting and soothing to watch like that now. I also read the book but remember it less. So I was drawn to this book about the life of its author Flora Thompson especially as it is written by Richard Mabey who I really admire. It was interesting and engaging if not fascinating. Flora was quite an incredible woman to have achieved so much, in such an era and from such difficult if idyllic beginnings. Praise education. Without it she may not have realised some of her ambitions.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I enjoyed the parts of this book taken from Flora Thompson's work itself. I liked her voice, and the picturesque descriptions she wove. As a book, however, it walked an odd line between biography and following the plots and developments of Thompson's works. A book I'm happy enough to have read, but wouldn't pick up again.

[Damaskcat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading the ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ trilogy when I was in my early twenties and enjoying the author’s descriptions of country life at the end of the nineteenth century. I have not read it since but I was surprised how much of it I could recall when I read this interesting book about Flora Thompson’s own life.

Not a great deal is known about Flora’s own life and it is tempting to assume that her own life was as detailed in the trilogy. Richard Mabey seems to alternate between emphasising that the trilogy is fiction and criticising the author for not sticking to the facts of her own life. Even when I had finished reading his book I wasn’t at all sure whether he believed it was fact or fiction.


I had never concerned myself with whether ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ was fact or fiction simply because it was an interesting and entertaining book. I can see – having read ‘Dreams of the Good Life’ - that the trilogy was based on Flora’s own life and experiences growing up in a small village. Clearly some episodes were embroidered to make a better story and personally I have no issue with this.

I found this book interesting for the glimpses it gave of how Flora felt as a woman of an independent character in an age when women were expected to be dependent on the men in their lives. She found she could not always devote the time she wished to her own writing and studying. She educated herself by her wide reading and seems to have had a voracious appetite for knowledge.

If you have enjoyed reading ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ then you will find this book of interest though you may not always agree with Richard Mabey’s conclusions about its author.

I received a free copy of this book for review.

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read and loved Lark Rise to Candleford many years ago when I was a teenager, and my paperback copy has survived numerous culls of my book shelves.
I even enjoyed the Sunday evening BBC series a few years back despite overuse of soft focus filming and some very dodgy casting.
However, it wasn't until I saw that Richard Mabey (familiar to me as a wonderful nature writer) had written a biography of Flora Thompson that I realised how little I knew about her. I'd fallen into the usual trap of thinking that Lark Rise was a memoir of Thompson's life growing up in rural Oxfordshire villages and working in the local post office.
Mabey makes it clear that Thompson wanted her famous book (written towards the end of her life but using various articles, ideas and stories written much earlier) to be classified as a novel. The problem was that it was the OUP who had agreed to publish it but they didn't publish fiction at the time. The problem was temporarily solved by labelling it an autobiography.
Mabey thinks (and I have to agree) that this rebranding has affected the perception of Flora's book ever since.
I may be a little generous in giving this 4 stars but Mabey tackles his elusive subject with sympathy but a clear sightedness too. Thompson didn't leave much behind in terms of 'archives' and it's not a long book, but I think it did capture the spirit of Thompson and what she set out to do. Her life was quiet and in many ways obscure, but she will remain very much loved for her work, and I think she would have liked that.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flora Thompson is the acclaimed author of the much-loved Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, that wonderful evocation of a lost world and a portrait of an English countryside and way of life that has gone for ever. In this meticulously researched and engagingly presented biography Richard Mabey, himself a naturalist with an affinity for the countryside, presents us with the woman behind the book. This wasn’t easy to do asThompson left few records of her inner life except for what is in her books, and that cannot be relied on as a true picture. Although it is often assumed that Lark Rise is an autobiography, Flora Thompson presented it as fiction, but as the OUP didn’t publish fiction, she was persuaded to call it an autobiography. However, as Mabey points out, the books are as much fiction as non-fiction, and he has done as well as anyone possibly could to flesh out the real woman behind the stories.
This is a very readable and enjoyable biography and a must-read for anyone who has loved the Lark Rise books.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is Richard Mabey not so much nature writer as literary scholar. I enjoyed Lark Rise to Candleford many, many years ago (the TV series passed me by entirely) and I enjoy Mabey's work so I thought I would enjoy this. On the whole I did not although there was just enough to keep me going to the end. As others have said the Flora and fictional Laura personas are not effectively presented (undoubtedly a serious challenge to do so) Flora's own life as a writer, literary figure, mother and wife was more engaging and provided a picture of a little known (by me anyway) section of early 20th century British society. Mabey takes issue too with the depiction of her by some biographers as oppressed by a dull husband and suggests the situation was rather more complex and balanced.

[Alison]

Richard Mabey writes so well. He sets out what little is known about Flora Thompson's life and reflects on her progress as a writer. She was born in Lark Rise but wrote about it much later when she had left the area, so Laura , the fictional heroine, remembering her past is also Flora remembering and also making up her story. RM also puts the books in. the context of writing at the time -during WW 2, when the idea/ideal of the English countryside was very much in vogue. Also talks about how hard it was for a self educated writer to get published ,when the patronising literary world had no place for an actual countryman.

[Anne Louise Merrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Mabey is the lead writer on one of my favorite herb books, so I picked this up when I saw it cheap and used. I got a little bored with it because I didn't know the place or the books Flora Thompson wrote. It had some interesting themes: the life we present to the public vs. the life we live, the relationship between "home" and the natural world, historical changes in the ways we interact with landscapes. A perfectly fine book, just not quite for me.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Added context and detail to Lark rise that was at times interesting and more endearing than the original!

[Kathy Howell]

Would have preferred more information about Flpra Thompson. The author seemed to get Laura Timms and Flora Thompson confused.