I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
For anyone interested in how England has been perceived in history, this is a perfect book. Each chapter was written like an individual essay but did not feel disconnected from the rest of the book.

Really enjoyed the accounts of England as seen through the eyes of writers and how the view has changed over the centuries.

E.R. Chamberlin’s The Idea of England was first published in 1986. I felt the early chapters were a perfect example of what a history book should be. It’s informative, well-written, light without overdoing it and being “matey”, e.g. “a sixteenth-century road was an idea rather than a structure”. The prose flows beautifully from one aspect to the next. As an MA student, it is a brilliant exemplar of how we are told to write essays. However, about three-quarters of the way through, I felt the prose was getting a little too purple and I realised there are no references. That means when I want to check whether Chamberlin is right, I cannot check his source because I don’t where he got the alleged fact. Back in 1986, references were not as mandatory as they are now.

I still think the first part of the book is brilliant. It starts with the Canterbury Tales and pilgrims making their way across the country; then Will Kemp and his dancing from city to city; before introducing my new heroine: Celia Fiennes. Celia rode around Britain in the late 1600s and early 1700s simply to have a look-see. She was curious and wanted to see places for herself. She was single and mostly rode alone apart from a male servant or two. She liked her drink – wine, ale, whatever – and was happy to have a go at things: she made a glass swan for herself at a Nottingham glassworks and stamped a half-crown at the mint in York. This was not conventional behaviour for a seventeenth century young woman! To give us an idea of how little people travelled then, Chamberlin points out that Celia saw the introduction of signposts – in 1697.

Chamberlin discusses the usual suspects: Daniel Defoe, John Byng, Arthur Young, William Cobbett, but explains each one’s motivation and sets them in the context of their times. He also shows us foreigners’ views of England (and note: this IS a book about England rather than the UK), several of whom were unknown to me.

Now and again, one is reminded that this book was written almost forty years ago and, in some ways, reflects an upbringing forty years before that – Eric Chamberlin was born in 1926. For example, I suspect that Eric would now be mistaken in thinking “every speaker of the English language” knows the first line of Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’. Reflecting upon it, I think I found the book too over-written once Chamberlin starts to discuss events within his own lifetime.

I would still strongly recommend this book, but just don’t expect the writing to maintain its excellent quality all the way through the book.

#TheIdeaofEngland #NetGalley