Product Description
English Journey is a new special edition of this timeless classic featuring a contemporary perspective from broadcaster and best selling author of Pies and Predjudice, Stuart Maconie. Here he follows in the path of Priestley and gives a modern take on his English journey in his own unique style.
Nearly 80 years on from the publication of this classic Priestley travelogue, its text has particular resonance in these modern times.
In 1934, JB Priestley published an account of his journey through England from Southampton to the Black Country, to the North East and Newcastle, to Norwich and home. In capturing and describing an English landscape and people hitherto unseen in literature of its kind, he influenced the thinking and attitudes of an entire generation and helped formulate a public consensus for change that led to the formation of the welfare state.
Prophetic, profound, humorous and as relevant today as it was nearly 80 years ago, English Journey expresses Priestley’s deep love of his native country and teaches us much about the human condition and the nature of Englishness.
Reviews
Peter Hitchens — Mail on Sunday, 2nd November 2012 I admire Priestley’s travelogue ‘English Journey’, which is . . . well worth finding if you wish to know how life was lived by ordinary English people in the early 1930sStuart Maconie, 2nd January 2010 [English Journey is] the finest book ever written about England and the EnglishDame Beryl Bainbridge, 12th November 2009 English Journey is an important book that has a literary importance and social value that far exceeds the time it was written.Huddersfield Examiner, 6th November 2009 This is a sharply observed tour of England, criticised once for its biting honesty, and now beautifully reworked.Roy Hattersley, 28th October 2009 Written in the elegant, simple language which was an essential part of Priestley’s brilliance. It is, in consequence, a masterpiece.Scotsman, 12th October 2009 English Journey [is] a classic of not just travel but of social history too. There’s still no fuller portrait of the country in the throes of the Depression Roy Hattersley, 23rd September 2009 Nina Bawden, 5th September 2009 Telegraph and Argus (Bradford), 15th August 2009 Timothy West, 11th August 2009 The Press (York), 25th July 2009 BBC Radio 4, 19th July 2009 Daily Telegraph, 11th July 2009 Blackpool Gazette, 7th July 2009 Times Weekend Supplement, 2nd May 2009 |