The love of place is endemic in English literature, from the work of the earliest poets and hermits to the suburban celebrations of John Betjeman, covering all varieties of the British rural and urban landscape. This is the first book to present an image of Britain as seen by writers of different regions and periods, and also to illuminate the way in which their work has changed our visual attitudes, our taste in landscape and our relation to nature.

          Margaret Drabble traces a most unhackneyed path… She writes magnificently… with the nerve which comes from wide and confident reading. Jorge Lewinsky has supplied a wide and thoughtful range of fine photographs to accompany this guide to the spots where landscape has become langiage.