Laurie Lee Libri

Spanning the first twenty-three years of his remarkable life, Laurie Lee's celebrated autobiographical trilogy is presented here in one delightful volume. Beginning with Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee writes evocatively of his idyllic childhood in the Cotswolds of the twenties, a world of rich sensuousness and native innocence. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning picks up the story as he leaves his valley for London and then for Spain. There, equipped only with a violin and his wits, he crossed the dramatic landscape of a vibrant and still almost medieval Spain for which he developed an abiding affection. In the winter of 1937 he returned to a country now in the grip of Civil War and joined the International Brigade, describing in A Moment of War his journey into the dark side of Spain with unsparing honesty and poignancy.

Laurie Lee greeted his daughter Jessy's arrival into the world with a small, but in his trademark style, lyrical essay, originally published in 1963. This is a republication of that enchanting essay - filling just 40 pages, and published in hardback with a soft and subtle-coloured ribbon marker.

This autobiographical volume describes the author's departure from Stroud, his walk to London, and his months in Spain on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. His other works include A Moment of War and Cider With Rosie .

Contains 40 of his best poems. June 2014 marks the Centenary of Laurie Lee's birth - this will be marked with new editions of his most famous literary works.

Village Christmas is a moving, lyrical portrait of England through the changing years and seasons. Laurie Lee left his childhood home in the Cotswolds when he was nineteen, but it remained with him throughout his life until, many years later, he returned for good. This collection brings to life the sights, sounds, landscapes and traditions of his home - from centuries-old May Day rituals to his own patch of garden, from carol singing in crunching snow to pub conversations and songs. Here too he writes about the mysteries of love, living in wartime Chelsea, Winston Churchill's wintry funeral and his battle, in old age, to save his beloved Slad Valley from developers. Told with a warm sense of humour and a powerful sense of history, Village Christmas brings us a picture of a vanished world

Andalusia is a passion - and fifteen years after his last visit Laurie Lee returned. He found a country broken by the Civil War, but the totems of indestructible Spain survive: the Christ in agony, the thrilling flamenco cry-the pride in poverty, the gypsy intensity in vivid whitewashed slums, the cult of the bullfight, the exultation in death, the humour of hopelessness-the paradoxes deep in the fiery bones of Spain. Rich with kaleidoscopic images, "A Rose for Winter" is as sensual and evocative as the sun-scorched landscape of Andalusia itself.

'I remember, too, the light on the slopes, long shadows in tufts and hollows, with cattle, brilliant as painted china, treading their echoing shapes' Cider With Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of Laurie Lee's childhood and youth in a remote Cotswold village.

Concludes the autobiographical trilogy begun in "Cider with Rosie" and "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning".

A moving portrait of the landscape that shaped the life of Laurie Lee, the beloved author of Cider With Rosie 'Before I left the valley I thought everywhere was like this. Then I went away for 40 years and when I came back I realized that nowhere was like this.' Laurie Lee walked out of his childhood village one summer morning to travel the world, but he was always drawn back to his beloved Slad Valley, eventually returning to make it his home. In this portrait of his Cotswold home, Laurie Lee guides us through its landscapes, and shares memories of his village youth - from his favourite pub to winter skating on the pond, the church through the seasons, local legends, learning the violin and playing jazz records in the privy on a wind-up gramophone. Filled with wry humour and a love of place, Down in the Valley is a writer's tribute to the landscape that shaped him, and where he found peace.

Reading this book is like a holiday - an interlude of pure pleasure. In it Laurie Lee has collected all of his occasional writing that he cares to preserve, and proves himself to be as much a magician in essay form as he is in his full-length prose works. Some of these pieces come from a world which is now well known and loved by almost everyone: that of the Gloucestershire childhood celebrated in Cider with Rosie. One is tragic and deeply moving, inspired by a visit to Aberfan a year after the disaster there. Many were brought home by Laurie Lee the traveller, from Holland, Tuscany, Mexico, Ireland, the West Indies, a film festival in Cannes. In all of them he displays the gifts that make him one of the best-loved writers now at work in Britain. This is a collection to buy in pairs - one for the bedside, and one to give to a friend. Cover design and illustration by John Gorham.