''Candleford Green'' is a 1943

semi-autobiographical novel An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction. B ...

by the English author

Flora Thompson Flora Jane Thompson (née Timms; 5 December 1876 – 21 May 1947) was an English novelist and poet best known for her semi-autobiographical trilogy about the English countryside, '' Lark Rise to Candleford''. Early life and family Thompso ...

. The village of the title is partly modelled on the Oxfordshire village of

Fringford Fringford is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about northeast of Bicester. The parish is bounded to the east by the Roman road that linked Alchester Roman Town with Roman Towcester, to the south by a brook that joins the River Bure, ...

. In 1945 the book was republished as part of the trilogy ''

Lark Rise to Candleford ''Lark Rise to Candleford'' is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Flora Thompson about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, at the end of the 19th century. The stories were previously published s ...

'', comprising the novels '' Lark Rise'' (1939), '' Over to Candleford'' (1941), and ''Candleford Green'' (1943).

Plot

The novel follows the life of Laura Timmins after her move at the age of 14 from her childhood hamlet of Lark Rise to the nearby village of Candleford Green where she takes up her first job as an assistant in the post office. The novel largely comprises a series of vignettes of the residents of Candleford Green.

Critical analysis

Laura represents the author

herself, born Flora Timms. In 1891, when the author was fourteen and a half, she went to work as a postal assistant in a nearby village, probably

. The novel includes experiences from several post offices and towns she got to know. According to

Richard Mabey Richard Thomas Mabey (born 20 February 1941) is a writer and broadcaster, chiefly on the relations between nature and culture. Education Mabey was educated at three independent schools, all in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. The first was at Roth ...

in his 2014 book ''Dreams of the Good Life'', "Candleford Green is a village which, like Laura, is in a state of change, slowly evolving into a kind of suburb, and nurturing a new social class 'on the borderline between the working and middle classes'".

References

Novels by Flora Thompson 1943 British novels Novels set in Oxfordshire Oxford University Press books {{1940s-autobio-novel-stub

Plot

Critical analysis

See also

References