Listmania!
Countryside Classics
A Place In My Country: In Search Of A Rural DreamA Place In My Country: In Search Of A Rural Dream by Ian Walthew
Buy new: £5.38 / Used from: £0.48
A contemporary classic
Cider with Rosie (Vintage classics)Cider with Rosie (Vintage classics) by Laurie Lee
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £1.81
Another classic, another book set in the Cotswolds
Lark Rise to Candleford: "Lark Rise"; "Over to Candleford"; "Candleford Green": A TrilogyLark Rise to Candleford: "Lark Rise"; "Over to Candleford"; "Candleford Green": A Trilogy by Flora Thompson
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.21
Rural English fiction at its best
Change in the Village (Social history)Change in the Village (Social history) by George Sturt
Buy new: £15.00 / Used from: £3.62
A Place in My Country c. 1900
The Notorious Poacher: Memoirs of an old poacher (Field sports library)The Notorious Poacher: Memoirs of an old poacher (Field sports library) by G. Bedson ("Grandad")
Buy used from: £2.24
First published in 1981
AkenfieldAkenfield by Ronald Blythe
Buy new: £5.98 / Used from: £3.90
A bit journalistic but a classic
Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas BewickNature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick by Jenny Uglow
Buy new: £7.40 / Used from: £1.57
A brilliant biography of the father of English rural woodcuts
Selected PoemsSelected Poems by Laurie Lee
Buy used from: £11.16
If you own one selection of English rural poetry, this is it.
The year of the pigeonsThe year of the pigeons by John Moore
Buy used from: £4.99
Long out of print, I can't think why.
The Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside Since 1900The Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside Since 1900 by Alun Howkins
Buy new: £17.51 / Used from: £11.99
Masterful.
The Enigma of ArrivalThe Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul
Buy new: £5.63 / Used from: £3.47
A Place in Someone Else's Country.
Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change Since 1800 (International Library of Historical Studies)Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change Since 1800 (International Library of Historical Studies) by Jeremy Burchardt
Buy new: £35.70 / Used from: £32.90
Explains the modern rural dream
Rural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth CenturyRural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth Century by Barry Reay
Buy new: £14.67 / Used from: £8.07
Gets inside the stereotypes of rural England
Went The Day Well? [DVD] [1942]Went The Day Well? [DVD] [1942]
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £3.99
Quintissential English rural film fiction
The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics)The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer
Buy new: £4.79 / Used from: £0.01
What to say?
Beowulf: A New TranslationBeowulf: A New Translation
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £3.00
The greatest early English poem.
Middlemarch (Wordsworth Classics)Middlemarch (Wordsworth Classics) by George Eliot
Buy new: £1.99 / Used from: £0.01
Magnificent
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman (Penguin Classics)Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman (Penguin Classics) by Thomas Hardy
Buy new: £4.19 / Used from: £0.01
Dorset? The most beautiful country after Gloucestershire
Wuthering Heights (Penguin Popular Classics)Wuthering Heights (Penguin Popular Classics) by Emily Brontë
Buy new: £2.00 / Used from: £0.01
1801 - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord
Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Popular Classics)Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Popular Classics) by Jane Austen
Buy new: £2.00 / Used from: £0.01
Provincial middle-class life
Jane Eyre (Penguin Popular Classics)Jane Eyre (Penguin Popular Classics) by Charlotte Brontë
Buy new: £2.00 / Used from: £0.01
The dark Hall
The Return of the Native (Penguin Classics)The Return of the Native (Penguin Classics) by Thomas Hardy
Buy new: £5.24 / Used from: £0.39
The pastoral village of Egdon Heath
Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Popular Classics)Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Popular Classics) by Thomas Hardy
Buy new: £2.00 / Used from: £0.01
"When Farmer Oak smiled,
Pride & Prejudice - 2005 [DVD]Pride & Prejudice - 2005 [DVD]
Buy new: £3.98 / Used from: £1.78
As re-watchable as the book is re-readable
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English GeniusThe Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius by George Orwell
Buy used from: £8.10
Not strictly in this list, but essential to understanding rural England