Corduroy

Corduroy was first published in 1930. It was followed by Silver Ley in 1931 and The Cherry Tree in 1932. Together they form a trilogy that has been described as 'the classic account of a twentieth-century Englishman's conversion to rural life'. In Corduroy the author's experiences as a farm apprentice in Suffolk are described. The tone is affectionate, humourous and not in the least patronizing. At times there is an elegiac strain not dissimilar to Edward Thomas. The three books constitute a threnody for, what was then, a vanishing, pre-mechanized way, of farming and rural life.

Adrian Bell (1901-1980) was born in Lancashire, grew up in London, and was educated at Uppingham School which he hated. His father, news editor of the Observer, was a republican and a socialist and had no truck with university education. His son was to do something useful; in 1920 he went to East Anglia to work as a farm apprentice. He subsequently became a farmer himself. These experiences provide the material for his famous rural trilogy, Corduroy, Silver Ley and The Cherry Tree. In total he wrote over twenty-five books, he also set the first Times in 1930 and continued to devise crosswords for the paper for the next thirty years.