{"title":"Books by Fiona Stafford","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781473686328","title":"Time and Tide","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Poetic and profound, \u003ci\u003eTime and Tide\u003c\/i\u003e is wise, considered and full of surprises' \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Poignant and touching' \u003ci\u003eMail on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Miraculous' \u003ci\u003eScotsman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA village waits at the bottom of a reservoir. A monkey puzzle tree bristles in a suburban garden. A skein of wild geese fly over a rusty rail viaduct. The vast inland sea that awed John Clare has become fields.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChapter by fascinating chapter, alive with literary, local, and her own family history, Fiona Stafford reveals the forces, both natural and human, which transform places. Swooping along coastlines, through forests and across fens, following in the footsteps of Burns and Keats, Celia Fiennes and Charles Dickens, William and Dorothy Wordsworth,  Noel Coward and Compton Mackenzie,  join her, time-travelling deep into the stories of our Isles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom red squirrels to brick vistas, from botanical gardens to hot springs, the landscapes of Britain are full of delights and surprises. Chance discoveries of rare species, shipwrecks and unlikely ruins, curious trees and startling towers,  weird caves and disused airfields, or even just baffling placenames offer ways into unexpected histories and hidden lives. The clues to the past are all round us - \u003ci\u003eTime and Tide\u003c\/i\u003e will help you find them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Shot through with tender delights and unexpected revelations' RICHARD HOLMES\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Wonderful . . . A fascinating compendium of people and places' PHILIP MARSDEN\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685921923445,"sku":"9781473686342","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":43717819728050,"sku":"9781473686328","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781473686342.jpg?v=1792599163"},{"product_id":"9780300232219","title":"Jane Austen","description":"An elegant and accessible introduction to the life and works of one of England's greatest and most popular novelists\"I want to salute Fiona Stafford's brilliant [book]. . . . It tells one all one needs to know about Jane Austen, and, best of all, leaves one wanting to read the novels once more, and better.\"—Jane Aiken Hodge Every devoted reader feels that, in some way, they know Jane Austen. But how can we make sense of her extraordinary achievements? At a time when most women received so little formal education and none could obtain a place at university, how did Austen come to write novels that have commanded the attention of some of the most brilliant minds ever since? Why were hers the books that Darwin knew by heart and Churchill read during the Blitz? In this graceful introduction to the author’s life and works, Fiona Stafford offers a fresh and accessible perspective, discussing Austen’s six astonishing novels in the context of their time. Newly updated, Jane Austen: A Brief Life offers a rich and sympathetic insight into a writer who was just as much the Romantic genius as Keats, Shelley or Byron—full of youthful exuberance, intensely creative once she had found her individual voice, and dead before she reached middle age.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311679189365,"sku":"9780300232219","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300232219_db85c9a2-12f1-4270-a848-f006ea097fc3.jpg?v=1786012213"},{"product_id":"brief-life-of-flowers","title":"The Brief Life of Flowers","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe beauty of flowers is well known, inspiring creative minds from Botticelli to Beatrix Potter. But they've also played a key part in forming the past, and may shape our future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRoses and thistles have served as symbols of monarchs, dynasties and nations. We wear poppies to remember the First World War, but it was the elderflower that treated its wounded soldiers. A rose might mend a broken heart, and sunflowers may just save our planet. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt once enchanting and intriguing, \u003ci\u003eThe Brief Life of Flowers\u003c\/i\u003e reveals how even the most ordinary of flowers have extraordinary stories to tell.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57484242747765,"sku":"9781473686373","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781473686373.jpg?v=1786266292"},{"product_id":"shakespeares-trees","title":"Shakespeare's Trees","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe English oak, the cedars of Lebanon, Ophelia’s willow, Cleopatra’s fig: trees are a living presence in Shakespeare’s landscapes and his imagination. From stage props to metaphors, and from the familiar to the mythical, trees connect Shakespeare and audiences across time to his physical and mental environment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this book, the Forest of Arden, the wood outside Athens, Justice Shallow’s orchard or the moving wood of Birnam in \u003cem\u003eMacbeth \u003c\/em\u003eare situated in the fascinating historical contexts of elite game parks, the timber economy, forestry, fruit-growing, ownership and stewardship. The great ‘wooden O’ of Shakespeare’s theatre is itself part of a city reliant on timber and an increasingly industrial and consumerist society. In exploring the place of trees in Shakespeare’s imagination and Tudor England the authors uncover Elizabethan concerns – wood shortages, deforestation, environmental degradation – which resonate powerfully with our times.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis beautifully illustrated book celebrates and unpacks the wideranging associations – poetic, historical, horticultural, folkloric and scientific – of Shakespeare’s trees.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57573224972661,"sku":"9781851246472","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-fiona-stafford.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}