The Victorian Countryside a Hundred Years On

Abstract

Volume VII of The Agrarian History of England and Wales completes a major publishing event. In 1956 R. H. Tawney chaired a meeting launching a series of eight volumes surveying the history of the English and Welsh countrysides from the Neolithic period to the beginning of the Second World War. The first, volume IV covering the years 1500 through 1640, appeared in 1967. This, the last and by far the largest book in the sequence, crowns the earlier achievements. Running to over 2,300 pages and published in two parts, volume VII is approximately twice the size – and price – of its immediate predecessors. If the physical presence of the book is impressive, the same comment applies to its content, elegantly edited by E. J. T. Collins, which covers a diverse range of topics, from King Edward potatoes to military underpants.