LoveReading Says
An extraordinary feat of storytelling, the three novels that make up the West Country Trilogy will take readers on a journey from the agricultural world at the turn of the century, through to the devastation and upheaval of the First World War – an event that will transform not only the lives of Lottie and Leo, but also the fate of a nation.
About The Wanderers
1912. Leo is on a journey. Aged thirteen and banished from the secluded farm of his childhood, he travels through Devon, grazing on berries and sleeping in copses. Behind him lies the past, and before him the West Country, spread out like a tapestry. But a wanderer is never alone for long – and soon Leo is taken in by gypsies, with their waggons, horses and vivid attire. Yet he knows he cannot linger, and forges on to Penzance.
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The Wanderers Synopsis
1912. Leo is on a journey. Aged thirteen and banished from the secluded farm of his childhood, he travels through Devon, grazing on berries and sleeping in copses. Behind him lies the past, and before him the West Country, spread out like a tapestry. But a wanderer is never alone for long – and soon Leo is taken in by gypsies, with their waggons, horses and vivid attire. Yet he knows he cannot linger, and forges on to Penzance.
Lottie is at home. Life on her father’s estate continues as usual, yet nothing is as it was. For her father is distracted by the promise of new love and Lottie is increasingly absorbed in the natural world: the profusion of wild flowers in the meadow, the habits of predators, and the mysteries of anatomy. And of course, Leo is absent. How will the two young people ever find one another again?
Timeless, searching, charged with raw energy and gentle humour, The Wanderers is a delicately wrought tale of longing, loneliness and love.
About This Edition
Tim Pears Press Reviews
PRAISE FOR THE HORSEMAN, the first novel in the West Country Trilogy
‘A novel that is as moving and profound as it is evocative of the landscape and period. Pears’s fiction has been likened to Thomas Hardy’s, and the comparison is apposite. As a coming-of-age novel, The Horseman is wise and insightful. As a love story, it is moving and sincere. And as a portrayal of rural Edwardian England, it is powerful, vivid and humane’ Observer
‘Pears has often been praised for his strong, clear prose and his ability to tell fascinating stories without fuss or fanfare. The Horseman is his best work in many years. As a testament to a forgotten generation of countrymen it is unsurpassed’ The Times
‘The pleasure of it lies in taking in the language and the setting – the West Country, in 1911 and 1912 – and in reading it like a long poem, with each chapter a stanza ... I am ready for volume two’ Jane Smiley, Guardian
‘With hypnotic lyricism, Pears describes this bucolic Devon world and the people who inhabit it ... [A] paean to the pastoral’ Mail on Sunday
‘A beautiful portrait of rural life at the turn of the century. Tim Pears combines meticulously researched historical material ... all depicted in rich, evocative detail – with lush, languorous, melodic prose ... A distinctly compelling pastoral bildungsroman that leaves the reader eager for the next installment’ BBC Countryfile
‘A tale beautifully told’ Times Literary Supplement
About Tim Pears
Born in 1956, Tim Pears grew up in Devon, left school at sixteen and had countless menial jobs before studying at the National Film and Television School. He is the author of six previous novels, including In the Place of Fallen Leaves, which won the Hawthornden Prize and the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award, In a Land of Plenty, which was made into a ten part drama series for the BBC, and, most recently, Landed. He has been Writer in Residence at Cheltenham Festival of Literature, and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and has taught creative writing at Ruskin College and elsewhere. He lives in Oxford with his wife and children.
Author photo © Rory Carnegie
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