In a North Country Village
M. E. Francis was born Mary E. Sweetman in Dublin and moved to Lancashire on her marriage to Francis Nicholas Blundell, of the Blundell family, who remain squires of Little Crosby, the last Catholic recusant village in England, which lies a few miles north of Liverpool. Blundell died young and Mary went on to write more than 50 books, using her husband's Christian name as pen name, including this collection of 12 stories set in Little Crosby (‘Thornleigh’).
A romantic portrait of mid-19th century village life written from an aristocratic point of view, In a North Country Village (1896) is built around striking portraits of strong Lancashire women surviving in the face of Hardyesque tragedy and the weaknesses of their men folk. M. E. Francis set many of her books in Ireland and Dorset, but several were set in Lancashire, including A Daughter of the Soil (1895), Yeoman Fleetwood (1900) and Marjory o'th' Mill (1907). (Summary by Phil Benson)
Genre(s): Single Author Collections
Language: English
Section | Chapter | Reader | Time |
---|---|---|---|
Play 01 | 01 - Thornleigh | Phil Benson |
00:23:58 |
Play 02 | 02 - Gaffer's Child | Phil Benson |
00:30:50 |
Play 03 | 03 - Celebrities | Phil Benson |
00:28:30 |
Play 04 | 04 - Nancy | Phil Benson |
00:35:48 |
Play 05 | 05 - Politics | Phil Benson |
00:14:08 |
Play 06 | 06 - The Gilly'fers | Phil Benson |
00:34:07 |
Play 07 | 07 - Aunt Jinny | Phil Benson |
00:29:25 |
Play 08 | 08 - On the other side of the wall | Phil Benson |
00:23:25 |
Play 09 | 09 - Little paupers | Phil Benson |
00:18:51 |
Play 10 | 10 - Here and there | Phil Benson |
00:25:52 |
Play 11 | 11 - "Our Joe" | Phil Benson |
00:20:15 |
Play 12 | 12 - Mates | Phil Benson |
00:15:31 |