As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
I was nineteen years old, still soft at the edges, but with a confident belief in good fortune. I carried a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese. I was excited, vain-glorious, know�ing I had far to go; but not, as yet, how far.Despite this romantic and optimistic opening, what Lee finds is the most primitive and feudal country in Europe, a peninsula untouched by the modern world, a land of labor without dignity, a church devoid of compassion, and a country ripe for revolutionary change.
There is humor, love, and adolescent awakening, but beneath is a foreboding sense of a savage future, a premonition that a war will come. For Lee, 1936 was the end of innocence, when it was being learned again that men needed more than courage, anger, slogans, convictions, or even a just cause when they went to war. Thus Lee becomes entangled in the passionate, violent, and bloody struggle that was the Spanish Civil War.
Laurie Lee was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1914, and was educated at Slad village school and Stroud Central School. In his teens Lee had already began to write poems. He had met two sisters who encouraged him in his writing aspirations. At the age of nineteen he walked to London and then travelled on foot through Spain, where he was trapped by the outbreak of the Civil War. He later returned by crossing the Pyrenees, as described in his book As I Walked Out one Midsummer Morning. During World War II he made documentary films for the General Post Office film unit (1939-40), and the Crown Film Unit (1941-43). From 1944 to 1946 he worked as an editor at the Ministry of Information Publications. In 1950 he married Catherine Polge and they had one daughter.
He died in May 1997.
He died in May 1997.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780233978031 |
| ISBN 10 | 0233978038 |
| Title | As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning |
| Author | Laurie Lee |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Distribution Services |
| Year published | 1985-09-12 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |