ENGLAND IS A VILLAGE. By C. Henry Warren. Illustrated by Denys Watkins Pitchford. "BB".

1940 1st edition. 8vo (143 x 222mm). Pp250,ill. B/w illustrations by Denys Watkins Pitchford ("BB"). Turquoise cloth, spine titled in dark blue.

"This chronicle of village life was mainly written during the two months of comparative calm which were destined to be the sinister prelude to total war. Moreover, the calm was emphasized, at least in the countryside, by coincidence with one of the bitterest spells of winter within living memory. For a few weeks Larkfield (as I have called the village) experienced something of that self-sufficiency which was the basis of English rural life in the days before Enclosure. And now, as I write this introductory note, every vestige of that calm has been shattered. Larkfield watches the approach of happenings which have no equal in terror or frightfulness. And meanwhile spring unfolds with a completeness only matched by the completeness of the winter that preceded it: the English countryside puts forth her loveliest and best to front the enemy, ...Already the Larkfield I have tried to picture in these pages wears the aspect of a dream ...but it is a dream that must be kept before our waking eyes when the horrors that sought to blind us are past." C. Henry Warren, from the Foreword. Interesting and readable.