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Rural Hours

The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann

by Harriet Baker

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Narrator Harriet Baker

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Length 11 hours 39 minutes

Language English

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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

1917. Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham, on the Sussex Downs, immobilized by nervous exhaustion and creative block.

1930. Feeling jittery about her writing career, Sylvia Townsend Warner spots a modest workman’s cottage for sale on the Dorset coast.

1941. Rosamond Lehmann settles in a Berkshire village, seeking a lovers’ retreat, a refuge from war, and a means of becoming ‘a writer again’.

Rural Hours tells the story of three very different women, each of whom moved to the country and were forever changed by it.

We encounter them at quiet moments – pausing to look at an insect on the windowsill; jotting down a recipe; or digging for potatoes, dirt beneath their nails. Slowly, we start to see transformations unfold. Invigorated by new landscapes, and the daily trials and small pleasures of making homes, they emerge from long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment; they embark on new experiments in form, in feeling and in living. In the country, each woman finds her path: to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing.

Graceful, fluid, and enriched by previously untouched archival material, Rural Hours is both a paean to the bravery and vision of three pioneering writers, and a passionate invitation to us all: to recognize the radical potential of domestic life and rural places, and find new enchantment in the routines and rituals of each day.

©2024 Harriet Baker (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Biography & Memoir Nonfiction Literary Criticism Social Science

Audiobook details

Author Harriet Baker

Narrator Harriet Baker

ISBN 9781802066395

Length 11 hours 39 minutes

Language English

Publisher Penguin Books Ltd

Publication date April 4, 2024

Edition Unabridged

Genres Biography & Memoir, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism & Social Science

Reviews

Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury go together like a horse and carriage … How important, then, to be reminded by Harriet Baker in this enjoyable book that Woolf was a countrywoman, too … Baker’s first book brings a fresh perspective to biographical material Fluid, engaging ... Rural Hours brings the much-loved country places of all three writers vividly back to life ... Baker really excels in capturing that elusive sense of place An outstanding piece of literary scholarship ... A biography that is far more intimate than most ... By choosing to embrace the daily routines of rural life, Baker proposes, these women found that the quality of their attention shifted ... Rural Hours is also a provocation to the present. No one could finish this book without concluding that the most important thing to any writer is solitude ... [It] reminds us that today we too often fail to afford our writers this necessity Baker conjures the sights and sounds of mid-20th-century rural England with vivid lyricism A poignant portrait of three writers finding their own way An absorbing study of the impact of country living on Woolf, Townsend Warner & Lehmann. A meditative exploration of renewal, visionariness—interior & exterior, generative & tormenting—grievous loss, & love—cool & passionate, fragile & enduring [A] group biography with a difference The best thing a summer can be is languid and, for that reason, I’m sure I’ll be returning to Harriet Baker’s Rural Hours, which pays a considered, domestic kind of attention to the “fallow periods” of Sylvia Townsend Warner, Rosamond Lehmann and Virginia Woolf’s lives A fascinating look at the impact of country home-making on the lives and work of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann. It's beautifully written, gorgeously produced, absorbing and full of insight Exploring what she calls “threshold moment[s]”, Baker examines quiet periods in the lives of three great literary figures, and how those years of rural solitude in which seemingly little happened led to groundbreaking experimental leaps in their fiction. A triumph of biographical writing and literary scholarship A fascinating investigation into the rural lives of Virginia Woolf, Rosamond Lehman and Sylvia Townsend Warner and the way their choices of where to lead their country lives shaped and influenced their work A near-mystical account of rural domesticity in wartime England Amid the hubbub of Christmas, I found sanctuary in this Biographer’s Club Prize-winning account of how the country life profoundly influenced the work of three very different 20th century female authors: Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Rosamond Lehmann A superb portrait of the complex imprint the countryside makes on the life of the mind, this exquisite book reveals three writers, each vividly drawn in the particularities of her own surroundings, her own difficulties and joys. This book is a thoughtful exploration of rural life and creativity, drawing on deep archival roots and Harriet Baker's unique warmth and eloquence. A treasure In this warm, perceptive, eloquent study, Harriet Baker collects some overlooked moments in these women’s lives, and with great honesty and empathy, captures what it felt like to live and write through them. Like Baker’s protagonists in their countryside boltholes I felt “socketed” by this book. I know I’ll return to it again and again The country life, with its dogs and flowers and sunsets, its leaky roofs and depression and boredom, has been an essential part of so many artists' lives, but is often seen as a weekend escape -- a quiet footnote to the more exciting drama of urban striving. Harriet Baker places rural hours at the center of the lives of three great writers, and shows how their works were forged in places whose quiet façades masked inner struggles every bit as tumultuous as the lives of the cities they left The transition from city to country life is a tale often told, but this absorbing and uplifting new iteration is of decided merit Rural Hours makes clear the connection between creativity and place. in this engrossing book, nature is nurture; a place of reverie and renewal that encouraged the rich imaginations of three pioneering writers to seed and bloom. Full of fresh insights and lively prose, I couldn't put it down Rural Hours is Harriet Baker’s first book and it is immensely readable. It bristles with evocative detail and she invests each chapter with the narrative drive of a short story. [...] Baker is extremely good at finding significance in the ordinary and has a feel for the thinginess of domestic existence, for what teacups or the grocer’s bill can reveal. She sifts quiet periods of homemaking for meaning and honours the bulb-planting, sheet-folding, list-making and resourceful cooking that contributed to the texture of the subjects’ days and fed back into their writing. Rural Hours is beautifully written, and Baker’s reading is wide and deep A delightful read, enhanced by quirky photographs – including several of these visionary writers with their goats Baker is an elegant and eloquent storyteller – and authoritative even while she’s in thrall, rightly, to the three women who make this book so often fascinating. A splendidly evocative and illuminating account ... Baker has a writer’s eye for detail, a scholar’s discernment and an enthusiast’s verve Expand reviews

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Rural Hours

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Reviews