Flora Thompson (1876–1947)
Author of Lark Rise to Candleford
About the Author
Series
Works by Flora Thompson
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Thompson, Flora
- Legal name
- Thompson, Flora Jane
- Other names
- Timms, Flora (birth)
- Birthdate
- 1876-12-05
- Date of death
- 1947-05-21
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Cottisford parish school
- Occupations
- novelist
poet
short story writer
postal worker - Short biography
- Flora Thompson, née Timms, was the eldest of six children of a stonemason and a nursemaid. She was educated at the parish school in Cottisford and left school at age 14 to work in various post offices across southern England. In 1903, she married John William Thompson, a post office clerk and telegraphist who had served in the Royal Navy, and the couple had a daughter and two sons. Flora Thompson won an essay competition in The Ladies Companion in 1911 for an essay about Jane Austen. She later began publishing extensively, writing short stories, magazine and newspaper articles. She was a dedicated self-taught naturalist and many of her nature articles were published in anthologies. Flora Thompson is best known for her semi-autobiographical trilogy of books about the rural English countryside, Lark Rise to Candleford.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Juniper Hill, Oxfordshire, England
- Places of residence
- Oxfordshire, England, UK
Devon, England, UK
Juniper Hill, Oxfordshire, UK - Place of death
- Brixham, Devon, England
- Burial location
- Longcross Cemetery, Dartmouth, Devon, England
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
Lark Rise to Candleford, originally published as three separate works in 1939–1943, is part autobiography, part historical documentary, and part social commentary. Other reviewers have described it as a novel (or rather, three novels), but I'm not sure I'd classify it as such. Flora Thompson sets out to recount rural life in England's 1880s and 1890s, and, incidentally, her own childhood. But she distances herself from the narrative by telling it in the third person and calling her show more character "Laura"—and anyways, Laura's story is secondary to that of Lark Rise and the surrounding areas.
And yet it isn't a story in the strict sense, which is why I don't think of it as a novel. Thompson gives her readers chapter after chapter of basic facts about what life was like for the agricultural laborers of the time. There is no villain, unless it be the ever-present poverty these country people faced. We follow the men to the fields and get a sense of their day-to-day lives and relationships. But the majority of the narrative is spent on the women, tracing out their struggles, describing their homes, discussing their love of fashion and gossip, and telling anecdotes of the more colorful or virtuous among them. At first I was a bit restless with the lack of plot, but as I continued to read I found myself drawn into the lives of the people Thompson describes, and I was left with an incredible amount of respect for their hardihood and endurance.
I suppose one could argue that the plot is loosely that of a coming-of-age novel, set against a backdrop that refuses to stay behind the characters. But I get the impression that it was more important to Thompson to capture her time and place with accuracy than to tell her own story. Her story comes in, of course, but usually only as a means to further elucidate her setting. This changes somewhat in the later sections, but I'm not sure I've read anything before that has quite this level of authorial detachment when the author is herself a character on the pages. The writing, by the way, is simply lovely.
Other works kept coming to mind as I read: L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables for the character sketches and small-community gossip (and foreshadowings of World War I in Montgomery's later books); James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small (and the rest) for its reverent handling of a rustic, long-past way of life and its humor; and, most of all, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which also features a sensitive young girl living in a poor community and observing it with both eyes wide open. Both Francie and Laura have similar family structures, with a generally absent father, hardworking and attractive mother, and favored younger brother who gets on with their surroundings rather better than his older sister. Both girls snatch at whatever scraps of education and books they can get (unlike the other children), and become both a product of and an outsider to their communities.
The social commentary comes in with Thompson's lively disdain for modern psychology and all the ailments it has invented. As I happen to agree with her on this point, I found it quite refreshing to read her observations on how the principle of supply creating demand applies to physical and psychological ills. She also presents a very realistic view of the nature of humanity, demonstrating children's innate savagery (though implying that it can be cured with education). It's clear Thompson has little patience with what she sees as our absurdly over-protective approach to parenting today. She casts herself as a case study, giving several examples throughout the book of her own emotional resilience (and she was a sensitive child, too). One such instance is when she stumbles on a field where a bull was engaged in the act of "justifying his existence." Little Laura slips away before the men see her—and, as she pointedly notes, with absolutely no psychological scars engraved upon her soul.
Thompson is very reticent about her own religious beliefs, but goes into great depth concerning those of the country people. There were one or two comments about the historicity of the Bible ("that Jonah story takes a lot of swallowing") and the fact that it was only the older, less educated country people who still believed in the biblical miracles. There was also implicit praise of a preacher who never said anything that could make anyone uncomfortable. As with the rest of the subjects Thompson explores, all is viewed through a lens of forty years' experience and historical hindsight. Indeed, it is the fear of loss and the desire to preserve, in some form, a way of life that is gone forever that seems to be Thompson's primary motive in writing.
Overall, this was an excellent read and I enjoyed the immersion in the historical period very much. show less
And yet it isn't a story in the strict sense, which is why I don't think of it as a novel. Thompson gives her readers chapter after chapter of basic facts about what life was like for the agricultural laborers of the time. There is no villain, unless it be the ever-present poverty these country people faced. We follow the men to the fields and get a sense of their day-to-day lives and relationships. But the majority of the narrative is spent on the women, tracing out their struggles, describing their homes, discussing their love of fashion and gossip, and telling anecdotes of the more colorful or virtuous among them. At first I was a bit restless with the lack of plot, but as I continued to read I found myself drawn into the lives of the people Thompson describes, and I was left with an incredible amount of respect for their hardihood and endurance.
I suppose one could argue that the plot is loosely that of a coming-of-age novel, set against a backdrop that refuses to stay behind the characters. But I get the impression that it was more important to Thompson to capture her time and place with accuracy than to tell her own story. Her story comes in, of course, but usually only as a means to further elucidate her setting. This changes somewhat in the later sections, but I'm not sure I've read anything before that has quite this level of authorial detachment when the author is herself a character on the pages. The writing, by the way, is simply lovely.
Other works kept coming to mind as I read: L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables for the character sketches and small-community gossip (and foreshadowings of World War I in Montgomery's later books); James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small (and the rest) for its reverent handling of a rustic, long-past way of life and its humor; and, most of all, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which also features a sensitive young girl living in a poor community and observing it with both eyes wide open. Both Francie and Laura have similar family structures, with a generally absent father, hardworking and attractive mother, and favored younger brother who gets on with their surroundings rather better than his older sister. Both girls snatch at whatever scraps of education and books they can get (unlike the other children), and become both a product of and an outsider to their communities.
The social commentary comes in with Thompson's lively disdain for modern psychology and all the ailments it has invented. As I happen to agree with her on this point, I found it quite refreshing to read her observations on how the principle of supply creating demand applies to physical and psychological ills. She also presents a very realistic view of the nature of humanity, demonstrating children's innate savagery (though implying that it can be cured with education). It's clear Thompson has little patience with what she sees as our absurdly over-protective approach to parenting today. She casts herself as a case study, giving several examples throughout the book of her own emotional resilience (and she was a sensitive child, too). One such instance is when she stumbles on a field where a bull was engaged in the act of "justifying his existence." Little Laura slips away before the men see her—and, as she pointedly notes, with absolutely no psychological scars engraved upon her soul.
Thompson is very reticent about her own religious beliefs, but goes into great depth concerning those of the country people. There were one or two comments about the historicity of the Bible ("that Jonah story takes a lot of swallowing") and the fact that it was only the older, less educated country people who still believed in the biblical miracles. There was also implicit praise of a preacher who never said anything that could make anyone uncomfortable. As with the rest of the subjects Thompson explores, all is viewed through a lens of forty years' experience and historical hindsight. Indeed, it is the fear of loss and the desire to preserve, in some form, a way of life that is gone forever that seems to be Thompson's primary motive in writing.
Overall, this was an excellent read and I enjoyed the immersion in the historical period very much. show less
Exquisite is the first word that comes to mind, but a special kind of exquisite, a gentle and tactful, clear-eyed (as opposed to naive or nostalgically sentimental) remembrance of life in a hamlet about 20 miles from Oxford in the last two decades of the 19th century. I'm old enough to know that there is always "a way of life passing by" (I remember the milkman delivering our milk in glass bottles for example) but Flora, (disguised as Laura) describes everything of the habits, dress, food, show more celebrations, furnishings and social structure of her childhood and this truly was, in a very critical way, a rural life that was about to come crashing to an end. This is really three books in one and I generally read ten or twenty pages at night before going to sleep. A treasure, Thompson manages to simultaneously write both subjectively and objectively about a way of life in which she was immersed as a child. I look forward to seeking out the BBC rendering of it which I gather is quite good. ***** show less
This collection is a trilogy of memoirs, including Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green. Together, the books detail the day-to-day existence of people living in Oxfordshire, England around the turn of the 19th century, largely focusing on the 1880s and 1890s. A central figure across all three books is Laura Timms, a literary personification of the author, Flora Thompson (née Timms).
These are not typical autobiographical memoirs. Although there are sections of the books that show more describe Laura’s life, Thompson spends more time offering a sociological picture of the places and communities that Laura lived in. Through Laura, Thompson sketches a picture of hamlet life in Lark Rise, including aspects of education, entertainment, birth, death, work, cooking, clothes making, festivals, politics, etc. In later volumes of the trilogy, the life and pace of Lark Rise is contrasted with Candleford Green (a village) and Candleford (a town). There are differences in size and scale but also in affluence, diversity, industrialization, mechanization, and general social velocity. Thompson spends most of her energy detailing life in Lark Rise and it is only as Laura begins to travel for family and work that readers begin to see the differences across the boundaries of place.
It is almost difficult to imagine such stark differences in the daily lives of people living in these three places. Differences in wages and spending power are to be expected, but the more interesting differences are in social mores and practices. There are notable differences in gender roles and education and professions that come to the surface through discussions about the impact of developments in technologies of telecommunications, logistics and shipping, personal and public transportation, as well as the changing technologies of the domestic sphere. There is a clear awareness of how the rate and degree of technological diffusion changed how people interacted with one another and how they created space for themselves in the modern economy.
These memoirs were submitted for publication in the 1930’s, and perhaps from that vantage point, Thompson was able to see changes coming that she couldn’t possibly have seen in the moment, for instance upon writing about the practice of people assembling to hear, read aloud, the serialized versions of Dickens’s novels, she noted:
Although only eight miles separates them, Candleford, Candleford Green, and Lark Rise represented societies moving at different speeds and seemed to represent a complex social stratification. It would be easy to read the books as pointing to an unevenness of social development, but there is also the sense that to even think about it as “development” is wrong insofar as “development” implies a kind of retrograde backwardness to places like Lark Rise. All three places are happy, functioning societies on different timelines. As a traveler between these worlds, Laura is able to observe and comment on the differences. She presents the differences without judgement, without resorting to pity or nostalgia.
I thought that three books of memoir were going to be too much for me, but the books are quite readable and each advances the project without only minimal overlap. show less
These are not typical autobiographical memoirs. Although there are sections of the books that show more describe Laura’s life, Thompson spends more time offering a sociological picture of the places and communities that Laura lived in. Through Laura, Thompson sketches a picture of hamlet life in Lark Rise, including aspects of education, entertainment, birth, death, work, cooking, clothes making, festivals, politics, etc. In later volumes of the trilogy, the life and pace of Lark Rise is contrasted with Candleford Green (a village) and Candleford (a town). There are differences in size and scale but also in affluence, diversity, industrialization, mechanization, and general social velocity. Thompson spends most of her energy detailing life in Lark Rise and it is only as Laura begins to travel for family and work that readers begin to see the differences across the boundaries of place.
It is almost difficult to imagine such stark differences in the daily lives of people living in these three places. Differences in wages and spending power are to be expected, but the more interesting differences are in social mores and practices. There are notable differences in gender roles and education and professions that come to the surface through discussions about the impact of developments in technologies of telecommunications, logistics and shipping, personal and public transportation, as well as the changing technologies of the domestic sphere. There is a clear awareness of how the rate and degree of technological diffusion changed how people interacted with one another and how they created space for themselves in the modern economy.
These memoirs were submitted for publication in the 1930’s, and perhaps from that vantage point, Thompson was able to see changes coming that she couldn’t possibly have seen in the moment, for instance upon writing about the practice of people assembling to hear, read aloud, the serialized versions of Dickens’s novels, she noted:
"They showed so much interest that one would naturally have expected them to get Dickens’s books, of which there were several in the Parish Library, to read for themselves. But, with very few exceptions, they did not, for, although they liked to listen, they were not readers. They were waiting, a public ready-made, for the wireless and the cinema" (435)
Although only eight miles separates them, Candleford, Candleford Green, and Lark Rise represented societies moving at different speeds and seemed to represent a complex social stratification. It would be easy to read the books as pointing to an unevenness of social development, but there is also the sense that to even think about it as “development” is wrong insofar as “development” implies a kind of retrograde backwardness to places like Lark Rise. All three places are happy, functioning societies on different timelines. As a traveler between these worlds, Laura is able to observe and comment on the differences. She presents the differences without judgement, without resorting to pity or nostalgia.
"They, too, or, rather, their children and grandchildren, were to come in time to the passing of the ways when the choice would have to be made between either merging themselves in the mass standardization of a new civilization or adapting the best of the new to their own needs while still retaining those qualities and customs which have given country life is distinctive character. That choice may not even now have been determined” (536)
I thought that three books of memoir were going to be too much for me, but the books are quite readable and each advances the project without only minimal overlap. show less
Flora Thompson's account of life in rural Oxfordshire in the last decades of the nineteenth century portrays an entire culture still governed by the rising and setting of the sun... perhaps the most intimate and persuasive account of the old rural order just before its transformation by modernism.
And what an informative and picturesque portrait it is. With no plot nor overarching story, almost the entire book is anecdotes and descriptions of the bygone days with interesting social commentary show more but Thompson evokes it all so beautifully. It makes me absolutely thankful of this luxurious-by-comparison modern world we have where we have more time for tending to our wants rather than spending all day to insufficiently tend to our needs but lose the connection to nature and community. Such are the trade-offs of modern life.
It was fun to wrap my head around the fact that I'm reading a book written seventy years ago, in which the author is writing about a time sixty years ago from her time. Even better is how the opinions of her characters of the people fifty years ago from their time, is similar to her opinions of those characters, and also our opinion of her times, it's surprising how relevant some sentiments (regarding the advance of technology, relationships between parents and children) still are. The stand out is that regarding the bicycles, a new mode of transport people railed against, citing them as dangerous and too fast, and that roads should be left to pedestrians. A sentiment then heaped onto automobiles, motorcycles, self-driving cars, and even back again to bicycles in areas without specific bike lanes where cyclists ride on footpaths.
Other highlights include the breakdown of social hierarchy, changing views on necessity of education, growing independence for women - Dorcas Lane is my hero, the modern day woman rebellions against authority figures, and Emily Rose my ideal olden-days lover where she sews and I knit in front of a big cosy fire, but of course we'll tell everyone we're only good spinster friends who only live together to save our pennies - , but the crème de la crème of it all is the "family pig", so beloved - that it warrants special and compulsory mentions in letters and daily conversations - and so delicious.
This autobiographical novel - although written in third person form which ironically made it more intimate and believable where the usage of "I" might have come across as too brash and obnoxious - is the book version of a mood lighting, utterly exquisite and evocative of those halcyon days without ignoring the hardships and intolerances endured. Recommended if you're interested in somewhat idyllic, rural communities or the effects of modernisation at the turn of the 20th century. show less
And what an informative and picturesque portrait it is. With no plot nor overarching story, almost the entire book is anecdotes and descriptions of the bygone days with interesting social commentary show more but Thompson evokes it all so beautifully. It makes me absolutely thankful of this luxurious-by-comparison modern world we have where we have more time for tending to our wants rather than spending all day to insufficiently tend to our needs but lose the connection to nature and community. Such are the trade-offs of modern life.
It was fun to wrap my head around the fact that I'm reading a book written seventy years ago, in which the author is writing about a time sixty years ago from her time. Even better is how the opinions of her characters of the people fifty years ago from their time, is similar to her opinions of those characters, and also our opinion of her times, it's surprising how relevant some sentiments (regarding the advance of technology, relationships between parents and children) still are. The stand out is that regarding the bicycles, a new mode of transport people railed against, citing them as dangerous and too fast, and that roads should be left to pedestrians. A sentiment then heaped onto automobiles, motorcycles, self-driving cars, and even back again to bicycles in areas without specific bike lanes where cyclists ride on footpaths.
Other highlights include the breakdown of social hierarchy, changing views on necessity of education, growing independence for women - Dorcas Lane is my hero, the modern day woman rebellions against authority figures, and Emily Rose my ideal olden-days lover where she sews and I knit in front of a big cosy fire, but of course we'll tell everyone we're only good spinster friends who only live together to save our pennies - , but the crème de la crème of it all is the "family pig", so beloved - that it warrants special and compulsory mentions in letters and daily conversations - and so delicious.
This autobiographical novel - although written in third person form which ironically made it more intimate and believable where the usage of "I" might have come across as too brash and obnoxious - is the book version of a mood lighting, utterly exquisite and evocative of those halcyon days without ignoring the hardships and intolerances endured. Recommended if you're interested in somewhat idyllic, rural communities or the effects of modernisation at the turn of the 20th century. show less
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