A website devoted to H.V. Morton and his works describes "In Search of England" as "the best-loved travel book of the 20th century." I'm not sure on what they base that judgment, but I for one am inclined to go along with it. I've read and reviewed a number of Morton's books, written both before and after this one, and while I enjoyed them all none of them were quite as entertaining, enlightening, and enthralling (a word I don't think I've ever used in an Amazon.com review before) as this one.

Following an almost crushing bout of homesickness in the Holy Land, Morton (who was 34 when he wrote this, incidentally) asked himself why, when Englishmen abroad think of England they -- even city-dwellers like himself -- picture green villages, hedge-lined roads, and other icons of rural life. Returning home, Morton sets out on a light-hearted and impulsive driving tour of villages, countryside, and cathedral and market towns. While the "In Search Of..." title might later become a conceit or even a cliché, in this, the first of his books to employ that phrase, he is literally in search this semi-mythical "England," if it still exists.

Morton's tour is a remarkable one, and along the way he meets practitioners of dying arts like bowl-turners and flint-chippers, all sorts of interesting people from nobility to tramps and "wayfarers," and a surprising number of American tourists (whose habits and slangy lingo I hope Morton is exaggerating, to save us a good deal of embarrassment). Morton's descriptions of architecture and landscape are excellent, but it's his ability to capture personalities and draw word-portraits that really shines. It's this aspect, as well as his clear love for his subject, that really drew me in. I read "In Search of England" cover to cover during the long Presidents' Day weekend, and got so into it I admit to actually being a little surprised to raise my head after the last page and discover (to paraphrase a famous movie line) "Seattle ... [expletive], I'm still only in Seattle."

I happened to read a third-printing of this book published in 1930, but I've also seen the contemporary Da Capo Press edition, and I have to say that if there's one thing "In Search of England" could use these days, it's an annotated version. Morton makes many references, comments, and asides that while understandable to readers in 1927 are largely lost to those in 2008. And then, of course, there's the question that kept haunting me as I read this, "How much of this survived the war and the subsequent half-century?" I read this book with an open Internet connection by my side for just such impulsive searches, and plan on someday going back through my copy and adding some notations of that sort myself, to the extent I can.

That issue aside, "In Search of England" is a remarkable book about a remarkable journey. You don't need to be a nostalgia-ridden Anglophile to get a lot out of it or appreciate the author's observant eye and skilled pen. But in my case, it helped.

H.V. Morton was a great travel writer. The first books I read by this author were about Italy, because I read everything I can about Italy. Morton wrote during the early 20th century, so there is a definite feeling of not just travelling, but travelling to another time. This is even more noticeable in the books about England and London. "In Search of England" takes the reader back to England of a few generations past. Morton is fascinated by the England of HIS past, and he speaks with English country folk who were old-fashioned even to his generation. There was a man who chipped flint into tools, for example. For readers like me who were fascinated by books like Rudyard Kipling's "Puck of Pook's Hill" and "Rewards and Fairies", Patricia Wright's "I am England", and the more recent "Sarum", this book will be a great source on England as it was in the last century. Very charming.

What a great travel writer H.V. Morton is! He reminds me of Joseph Mitchell ("Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories"), who wrote of similar experiences in and around New York City for the New Yorker magazine in the 1930's, 40's and 50's.

This book chronicles a solitary road trip that Morton took around England in the late 1920's. It tells the story of his experiences with local people and gives fascinating historical commentary about some of the sights. As such, it's got human interest, glimpses of life in rural England nearly 80 years ago as well as snippets of life in England over the centuries. Morton's writing style is simple, sincere and insightful. He makes you believe he loves what he's writing about.

He sets off from London and heads west/southwest along the coast of the English Channel to Land's End. From there he goes northeast along the Bristol Channel and then straight north to Gretna Green just over the border into Scotland ("This story has no right in this book and I apologize for writing it" he writes), along Hadrian's Wall and finally zig zags southward back to London.

In Cornwall ("There is a strangeness in Cornwall. You feel it as soon as you cross Tor Ferry.") he spent the night in a tiny bedroom of a cottage in St. Anthony-in-Roseland. "...I came here because I like the name." Prepared for the worst, he finally came across "a rosy middle-aged woman, wearing a print apron...standing at the door of a pink cottage looking at my car as though it were an unnatural phenomenon." Asking her where he might stay the night, she replied " `I've got nothing for dinner, sir, but eggs and cream, because we have no shops, and everything is brought us from Gerrans in motor car-or else I'd gladly give you my spare room.' I told her that eggs and cream were the only things I would dream of eating in St. Anthony-in-Roseland." He goes on to recreate the evening he shared with this woman, her husband and some neighbors, talking and listening to music from the ballroom in London's Savoy Hotel on the wireless.

In another adventure, Morton arrived at Wells Cathedral just before noon and saw "a crowd whispering, standing about, sitting on stone seats, leaning against pillars and tombs,...There were charabanc (sight seeing motor coach) parties, American families, market women, farmers and their wives... `What are they doing?' I asked a verger. `Waiting to see the clock strike twelve!' he replied. Then I remembered that in Wells Cathedral is one of the most exciting clocks in England; in fact, with the exception of the clock in Strasburg Cathedral, probably one of the most exciting clocks in the world. It is 600 years old, and it was invented by a monk of Glastonbury called Peter Lightfoot." He goes on to vividly describe the clock and what happened as it struck twelve.

I love discovering great writers, and I put HV Morton in this category. In addition to "In Search of England" he wrote about London, Spain, Italy, Rome, St. Paul (the person), and more. I look forward to reading all his books and am grateful for DaCapo Press (and my husband who bought this book) for making this discovery possible.