Publishing History > The King's England (Hodder & Stoughton; etc.) - Book Series List
The King's England
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.; The King's England Press.
Country: UK. Date: 1936- .
Front cover of: Monmouthshire. Arthur Mee, ed.
Londn: Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1957 (The King's England series).
Hardback with dustwrapper. 92 fine gravure illustrations. 177 pages.
THE KING'S ENGLAND (HODDER & STOUGHTON) - CHECKLIST
Series note: The King's England series of books was a great historical and topographical survey of England published by Hodder & Stoughton under the editorship of Arthur Mee. By 1945 volumes covering 36 counties had been published.
The King's England series was a paean to England as it was in the years before World War II with (as Dennis Smith points out in Englishness: Politics and Culture 1880-1920) Mee eulogizing the England's countryside (its country lanes, its rivers, etc.) and equally its towns and cities.
For example, in his book on London (which bore the subtitle "heart of the Empire and wonder of the world"), Mee described the capital as being "like a widow's cruse,.mysterious and inexhaustible". He goes on to say: "It is older than freedom, but is ever renewing its youth. When half the world speaks to the other half it speaks through Faraday House. When the troubled world seeks to rest, it comes to London. The nations go mad, but London keeps its head. The wonder of cities and the centre of the Empire, it stands in cloudy days like an island of calm weather. The storms may beat about it and the winds may blow, but it remains the magnet of the world."
Serial No./Title/First Edition Date
Enchanted Land (Introductory Volume). First published 1936.
Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire
Berkshire
Buckinghamshire
Cambridgeshire
Cheshire
Cornwall
Derbyshire
Devon
Dorset
Durham
Essex
Gloucestershire
Hampshire with the Isle of Wight
Herefordshire
Hertfordshire
Kent
Lake Counties
Lancashire
Leicestershire and Rutland
Lincolnshire
London: Heart of the Empire and Wonder of the World
Middlesex
Monmouthshire
Norfolk
Northamptonshire
Northumberland
Nottinghamshire
Oxfordshire
Shropshire
Somerset
Staffordshire
Suffolk
Surrey
Sussex
Warwickshire
Wiltshire
Worcestershire
Yorkshire – East Riding
Yorkshire - North Riding
Yorkshire – West Riding
Back cover of: Monmouthshire. Arthur Mee, ed.
Londn: Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1957 (The King's England series).
Hardback with dustwrapper. 92 fine gravure illustrations. 177 pages.
About this series
-- "The King's England: county by county, covering 10,000 towns and hamlets in the most famous of modern surveys."
-- "The most complete picture of a country ever presented to its people."
-- "A New Domesday Book of 10,000 Towns and Villages."
-- "Complete in 41 volumes. Over 10,000 places. Over 6,000 photographs."
-- "Nothing like these books has ever been presented to the English people. Every place has been visited. The Compilers have travelled half-a-million miles and have prepared a unique picture of our countryside as it has come down through the ages, a census of all that is enduring and worthy of record."
Source of above quotes: Introductory pages and dustwrapper of London: Heart of the Empire and Wonder of the World (Hodder & Stoughton, 1960)
-- "There has never been a great visitation of the country for the people, and we have tried to make one. We have been to ten thousand towns and villages and come back laden with good reports. Marco Polos bringing our treasures home. We have been to all our great towns and villages, have felt the touch of thousands of years of history and thousands of people who have mde our homeland the most beautiful and the most stirring land on earth... It is for us to guard this Little Paradise, to pass it on to those who follow."
Source: Enchanted Land Arthur Mee, ed. (Hodder & Stoughton, 1936).
What the Press Said About The King's England Series
"Congratulations must go to all concerned in this tremendous endeavour, a panorama of England of outstanding importance and usefulness." -- The Sunday Times
"An engrossing survey of the country, a fascinating record of the English heritage." -- Daily Mail
Source of above press quotes: Introductory pages and dustwrapper of London: Heart of the Empire and Wonder of the World. Arthur Mee, ed. (Hodder & Stoughton, 1960)
Share this page:
Author: David Paul Wagner
(David Paul Wagner on Google+)
|