Places An Anthology of Britain

British landscapes animated by the writers who loved them best. Ronald Blythe's 1981 Oxford University Press hardcover assembles a chorus of voices celebrating specific locations across England, Wales, and Scotland. Blythe, author of the celebrated "Akenfield," chose and introduced selections from poets, novelists, and essayists who transform geography into literature. Readers encounter Thomas Hardy's Wessex, the Brontes' Yorkshire moors, Dylan Thomas's Wales, and Wordsworth's Lake District through the eyes of those who knew these places most intimately.

The anthology's structure - organized geographically rather than chronologically - creates a literary map of Britain where landscape and literature become inseparable. Published by Oxford University Press, the book carries that institution's authority in defining British literary tradition. It appeared just as heritage tourism boomed and Britons grew newly anxious about preserving rural landscapes against development. For Anglophiles or students of place-based writing, Blythe's curation demonstrates how literature doesn't just describe places - it creates them, making certain landscapes inseparable from the words written about them.