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England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion's Psychic Landscape
Bestselling author and online curator Stephen Ellcock selects pivotal images to chart the fiery and chaotic spirit of England as it has developed over several thousand years - and continues to develop. With texts by novelist and musician Mat Osman that reclaim Albion as an unhinged and rebellious magical kingdom that is open to all.
Stephen Ellcock consistently blows my mind - Kara Walker
This is a ground-breaking exploration through images of England's psychic landscapes: of the land itself, scarred by ancient tracks, chalk carvings and standing stones; of the wild places - mountain, moorland and seascape; of the farmlands scattered with medieval churches and ruins; and of the folkloric rituals and occult investigations of the people who inhabit its villages and cities. Whether your family has lived here for four thousand years or for four, we are all castaways on Albion's shore.
The book shares more than two hundred carefully selected images ranging from medieval psalters, to photographs of seasonal celebrations past and present, to stills from iconic television and film, to depictions of the English landscape and soul from a wide range of artists through the centuries. The images are accompanied by texts by Mat Osman woven around the central themes of Ellcock's choices, exploring magic and mazes, ghosts and gardens, shipwrecks and cities. These poetic renderings of a spectral isle together with Ellcock's hallucinatory visual journey reclaim Albion as an eternally unhinged and rebellious magic kingdom - an England on fire.
Stephen Ellcock consistently blows my mind - Kara Walker
This is a ground-breaking exploration through images of England's psychic landscapes: of the land itself, scarred by ancient tracks, chalk carvings and standing stones; of the wild places - mountain, moorland and seascape; of the farmlands scattered with medieval churches and ruins; and of the folkloric rituals and occult investigations of the people who inhabit its villages and cities. Whether your family has lived here for four thousand years or for four, we are all castaways on Albion's shore.
The book shares more than two hundred carefully selected images ranging from medieval psalters, to photographs of seasonal celebrations past and present, to stills from iconic television and film, to depictions of the English landscape and soul from a wide range of artists through the centuries. The images are accompanied by texts by Mat Osman woven around the central themes of Ellcock's choices, exploring magic and mazes, ghosts and gardens, shipwrecks and cities. These poetic renderings of a spectral isle together with Ellcock's hallucinatory visual journey reclaim Albion as an eternally unhinged and rebellious magic kingdom - an England on fire.
221 pages, Hardcover
Published June 14, 2022
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453 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
July 24, 2022
I think this might qualify as my book of the year. It is full of colour and black and white plates, with paintings from various periods, photographs, drawings, and medieval art. It covers various aspects of England, from history to geography, from folklore to literature, with introductory pieces to each of the individual sections. The text is imaginative, tending towards fantasy, but travels between an old imagined England of the supernatural and imagination, and the stark reality of pollution, decay, and urban sprawl. It emphasises the disconnection between people, their hopes and dreams, and the reality that cries out for disruption, revolution, a complete remaking of the land and people, whilst hovering between hope for a better future and fear of failure and loss.
I can't recommend it strongly enough!
I can't recommend it strongly enough!
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July 3, 2022A vision of our crumbling nation through an alternate history of its art, in which Constable is glimpsed, but is a far less significant figure than Samuel Palmer - which is as it should be, of course. Though I would have liked a bit more Turner, surely one of those Bowie figures who looms large in the establishment version of the tale but even larger in the counter-history. His elemental skies would be right at home among these folk rituals, echoes of enclosures, and glimpses of strange, nocturnal figures, curated by Ellcock (an unexpectedly Kappa-clad and blokey presence at the book's Fortean Society launch – though I suppose that's part of his point about not writing off the working class). He was an eloquent and knowledgeable guide, but the writing duties here devolve on Suede's Mat Osman, who based on the incantatory refrains and uneasy encounters of this sample is never going to sell as many books as his more supermarket-friendly brother, but sure as blazes knows his way around a sentence. I didn't agree with everything they said; yes, to some extent images are more immediate across time than text, but there are often resonances we lack the background to pick up on, even if in some of this material we can definitely tell that resonances are there. The evidence of wild spaces around me is that roses, even quite highly bred variants, don't do so badly outside the garden as all that; and surely crop circles were at least as much a 1990s thing as the 1970s and 80s mentioned here? But these are minor quibbles; for the most part Osman does a good job of providing an evocative accompaniment to the images, without ever pinning them down too much – working as a rhythm section again, perhaps. And it's the images which are the stars, ranging from the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages, Paul Nash and Jamie Reid to contemporary creators like Claire Partington, cover artist Dan Hillier, and James F Johnston (yes, as in the guy from Gallon Drunk, who turns out to be a lot better at this than many more famous musicians turned artists one could name). Reading the book is a constant tension between speeding up into some sort of oracular flicker book, and getting lost in contemplation of a single picture's mysteries – especially when you run into something by Richard Dadd or Austin Osman Spare. The one thing which surprised me, in a book intended to offer a vision of England's underbelly, is that there wasn't more humour – Hogarth makes one appearance, and there's a lovely spoof spirit photo, but I feel like Cold War Steve is an odd omission. Still, the nature of the project is that it's deeply personal, and heavens know these are not particularly amusing times, although to my surprise and scepticism the book does end with promises of a new dawn.
June 5, 2023
This beautifully illustrated book looks at England post-Brexit with creative essays accompanied by artworks grouped within themes ranging from rocks to Arcadia. The artworks include pre-historic pieces, artworks by great English painters such as Turner and Constable, right through to contemporary artists such as Olivia Kemp and Claire Partington who comment on contemporary England.
January 2, 2023
For Christmas, my brother got a gizmo that lifts rust off of metal. I received a book described as "a visual journey through Albion's psychic landscape." My brother and me are not the same.
Or, perhaps we are more alike than we realise, for does not England On Fire, so to speak, "lift the rust" from this sodden, dying land? The poison fog rises to expose the quiet anarchy, from pre-Christian rituals to neo-pagan raves, that squirm in the dark, beneath the slabs, in the cracks. People's ever-evolving connection to the land, and the secrets it conceals.
A visual trip of images culled from several sources, many of which I had never seen before (and often wished the format of the book was larger as to get a better look at the many haunting photographs and artwork). The book is an excellent companion piece to Paul Wright's 2017 film, Arcadia.
Or, perhaps we are more alike than we realise, for does not England On Fire, so to speak, "lift the rust" from this sodden, dying land? The poison fog rises to expose the quiet anarchy, from pre-Christian rituals to neo-pagan raves, that squirm in the dark, beneath the slabs, in the cracks. People's ever-evolving connection to the land, and the secrets it conceals.
A visual trip of images culled from several sources, many of which I had never seen before (and often wished the format of the book was larger as to get a better look at the many haunting photographs and artwork). The book is an excellent companion piece to Paul Wright's 2017 film, Arcadia.
April 20, 2023
Like any good book of visual stimulation, this one is best taken slowly. The variety of themes and images requires a little reflection beyond the page flipping that I sometimes bring to "art books." This one defied my expectations, mostly by creatively juxtaposing modern pieces against selected evidence from England's rich past. The effect is surprising and very effective and the author earns respect for the diversity of the imagery, the avoidance of cliche, and the narrative sense of journey. Recommended.
August 18, 2024
English art? It’s lords and ladies, hunting scenes,pastoral landscapes strangely lacking in people, records of the people who have seized the land and called it theirs. It’s tall ships, tall horses, country piles and women in pretty dresses. The rewards of being rich in England.
Dig deeper into the archives though and you may find magic, anarchy, wildness and madness. Ellcock knows where these secrets are hidden and he’s created a guide so you can see it too.
There’s another England here that is surreal, on the edge of ruin, full of ghosts and older pagan gods. A dream of England that tips into nightmare. All the greats are here: John Martin, Samuel Palmer, William Blake, Hogarth, Turner, Spencer but also modern artists drawn to England by promises and now adding to the voices that seek to define what it is to be English, their works being folded into the culture with an ease that defines the English Imagination built on diversity, adaptation, a delight in the strange, the amusing, the eccentric.
Here too are photos: standing stones, riots in Hackney, the faces of England, weird customs and new rituals.
The themes draw on elements that make up the English Imagination: Shakespeare and standing stones, water,
weeds and woods. Osman’s essays lead you on a journey through this hallucinogenic landscape, guides pop up to whisper in your ear about deserted retail parks, Enclosures, secret gardens and shipwrecks. Each chapter is a dream.
Take it slowly, sink into the pictures, take your time. This is a book to savour and spend time alone with. If you want to truly know what England is, this book will guide you, make the ordinary seem strange and bring the strange into view. This is “an enchanted, enchanting, maddening, quickening, furious, funny and fabulous England.
An England on fire ...”
Dig deeper into the archives though and you may find magic, anarchy, wildness and madness. Ellcock knows where these secrets are hidden and he’s created a guide so you can see it too.
There’s another England here that is surreal, on the edge of ruin, full of ghosts and older pagan gods. A dream of England that tips into nightmare. All the greats are here: John Martin, Samuel Palmer, William Blake, Hogarth, Turner, Spencer but also modern artists drawn to England by promises and now adding to the voices that seek to define what it is to be English, their works being folded into the culture with an ease that defines the English Imagination built on diversity, adaptation, a delight in the strange, the amusing, the eccentric.
Here too are photos: standing stones, riots in Hackney, the faces of England, weird customs and new rituals.
The themes draw on elements that make up the English Imagination: Shakespeare and standing stones, water,
weeds and woods. Osman’s essays lead you on a journey through this hallucinogenic landscape, guides pop up to whisper in your ear about deserted retail parks, Enclosures, secret gardens and shipwrecks. Each chapter is a dream.
Take it slowly, sink into the pictures, take your time. This is a book to savour and spend time alone with. If you want to truly know what England is, this book will guide you, make the ordinary seem strange and bring the strange into view. This is “an enchanted, enchanting, maddening, quickening, furious, funny and fabulous England.
An England on fire ...”
November 2, 2025
As a Brit with very little artistic knowledge but an increasing interest in British and English culture, this book was an absolute joy to experience. The art - of all sorts of mediums - was consistently fascinating, intriguing, impressive and creative, and the juxtaposition of various pieces together on the page (or the double-page spread) brought more out of them than if they were experienced in isolation. The pieces are very clearly credited, and I've come away from this book with numerous other rabbitholes to tumble down, including whole collections which we glimpse snippets of within these pages.
The art is split thematically, which gives a sense of narrative cohesion to the book, aided by Mat Osman's fantastic prose, with each section prefaced by a loose but ongoing narrative exploration of England from its wild pre-history up to the eclectic and diverse modern day. We as readers are taken on a tour of the change that England has seen throughout its deep and often untold history.
If I have any critique of this book, it's that some of the pieces we're shown come with very little context, while others get a paragraph or two explaining the origin/the artist and other relevant information. This isn't a deal-breaker, because there's something to be said about letting the art speak for itself and the minimalist presentation on the page (often simply two or three images with annotations for the title/artist/date/medium), rather than crowding out the artwork with needless blocks of text. However, some of the pieces are so intriguing and curious that it seems a shame not to get some manner of insight into them. Given the strong theming of each section/chapter, I'm curious about some of the choices made about which pieces to include or place side-by-side. If Stephen Ellcock and Mat Osman were to join forces again for a future book of a similar vein, perhaps a bit more insight into the choices made of what to include would be enjoyable to have.
Otherwise, this was a brilliant experience and I'm very pleased I picked it up from my local independent (Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham). Great selection of artwork, excellent accompanying narrative/context and a very high quality book that's simply beautiful to look at. Highly recommend to anyone interested in art or in British or English culture.
The art is split thematically, which gives a sense of narrative cohesion to the book, aided by Mat Osman's fantastic prose, with each section prefaced by a loose but ongoing narrative exploration of England from its wild pre-history up to the eclectic and diverse modern day. We as readers are taken on a tour of the change that England has seen throughout its deep and often untold history.
If I have any critique of this book, it's that some of the pieces we're shown come with very little context, while others get a paragraph or two explaining the origin/the artist and other relevant information. This isn't a deal-breaker, because there's something to be said about letting the art speak for itself and the minimalist presentation on the page (often simply two or three images with annotations for the title/artist/date/medium), rather than crowding out the artwork with needless blocks of text. However, some of the pieces are so intriguing and curious that it seems a shame not to get some manner of insight into them. Given the strong theming of each section/chapter, I'm curious about some of the choices made about which pieces to include or place side-by-side. If Stephen Ellcock and Mat Osman were to join forces again for a future book of a similar vein, perhaps a bit more insight into the choices made of what to include would be enjoyable to have.
Otherwise, this was a brilliant experience and I'm very pleased I picked it up from my local independent (Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham). Great selection of artwork, excellent accompanying narrative/context and a very high quality book that's simply beautiful to look at. Highly recommend to anyone interested in art or in British or English culture.
August 2, 2022
This book contains a great number of images in a number of media photographic sculpture painted line drawn. Still some films covering a mythical and potentially psychedelic view of different aspects of England compiled by Steven Ellcock. Matt Osman provides some text which attempts to draw it together and in some ways achieves that aim, struggling from time to time with the extension of the metaphor of the boy who is a central part of the narrative. As with many such books, although this is a reasonably large hardback format being about 2/3 of the size of an A4 piece of paper, the images would definitely benefit from a larger format. That said, the book is produced to a very high quality and is definitely worth the money!
July 16, 2022
If ever there was a cabinet of curiosities in book form it’s this. Structured thematically across categories such as ‘Myth’ and ‘Arcadia’, Ellcock curates an at once luminous and tenebrous archive of Albion’s artistic, often occult, oddities and grotesqueries throughout history to protest against the “snoring galleries” of British art. Obliquely supplementing which is Mat Osman’s incantatory prose, captions and ekphrases which paint a retroflexive yet simultaneously clairvoyant picture of Britain’s eldritch, uncanny landscape through which the reader rambles; dogging the heels of our puckish sightseeing guide: the Tyburn boy.
August 10, 2022
The images in this book have you discover an England that's dark, unsettling, a bit uncanny and inspirational. I loved the mix of old and contemporary artists and how they interact when brought together. I googled quite a few of the artists while reading the book.
Both visually and textually it's like a modern day gothic novel. You get the England your fantasy conjures up when you read - I almost wrote too much, but there's never such thing as too much when it comes to books- Wuthering Heights, Northanger Abbey, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Castle of Otranto, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf...
Only downside: I feel like a trip to the UK now.
Both visually and textually it's like a modern day gothic novel. You get the England your fantasy conjures up when you read - I almost wrote too much, but there's never such thing as too much when it comes to books- Wuthering Heights, Northanger Abbey, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Castle of Otranto, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf...
Only downside: I feel like a trip to the UK now.
November 8, 2022
I love the aesthetic but I didn’t get it. Pictures are curated into chapter headings that don’t relate to the images. Intro text is a bit too creative for me, I’d rather had an explanation of how and why the images relate to one another, their important in history and the stories of the art. Instead to me it feels like a curation of someone’s favourite photos with a friend adding an intro of creative writing. It most likely went over my head and feels like a wasted opportunity for a good idea. Sorry.
June 20, 2023
An uncanny genre-junking journey into the heart of Britain, that travels chameleon-like through time, magic, Empire, land, myth, protest and revolution. This beautiful and bizarre odyssey melds poetry, essay and art curation to burrow into the brutality, madness and majestic occult mystery that is Brittanica.
Haunting, strange and alchemical.
Haunting, strange and alchemical.
February 19, 2025
Another reread. I love how Ellcock and Osman illustrate a diverse, eclectic post-Brexit England that is massively flawed culturally but full of things to cherish and hold on to. I often find I feel the same way about liking England (land where people live) and not England (nation / state). The artwork choices are wild and I’ve discovered so many great artists new and old from this book.
May 28, 2022
A wild collection of images, overwhelming in breadth and depth - I've got a massive amount of inspiration from it, going to build some weird things.
August 12, 2022
Amazing mixture of images and texts. Lots of thoughtful concepts and one that I will go back to again and again. Lovely book!
September 25, 2022
I loved this, art has for too long been presented and collected as a passtime of the elite. This book shows the rich history of art and creativity that has existed outside the regal halls of power
November 16, 2022
The writing isn't great, to be honest. But that hardly matters when the collection of images is so great.
December 29, 2022
A definite 5 stars for the artworks which I will definitely return to - an amazing miscellany. I'm less convinced by Matt Osman's text, but this doesn't detract from the collection.
March 5, 2024
I hoped for old-school Hellblazer vibes and received.
February 8, 2025
The blurb on the back made this sound great but I was disappointed by how many artists were missed out and should've been included.
May 1, 2025
guay pero random
July 12, 2025
A fantastic selection of art and great writing.
August 30, 2025
amazing images chosen & curated by Stephen Ellcock, supported by Mat Osman's poetic text. an alternative view of England, an antidote to Farage & his Little England mentality.
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December 30, 2025vidually stunning and poetically written
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews