Flora Thompson is best remembered for three (or four) memoirs she wrote, Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), Candleford Green (1943) and pothumously published Still glides the stream (1948. The first three volumes were also printed in one volume entitled Lark rise to Candleford.

I thought this was a novel, but it turned out to be more like a work of social history of late-Victorian village life. Clearly, Flora Thompson doesn't have the skill of her contemporaries Thomas Hardy or Hugh Walpole. Lark Rise is well-written but rather boring.There isn't such an awful lot to write about village life, so at 247 pages the book seems a bit too long, with some information repeated. After about 150 pages it became a bit of a drag. ( )

It was well-written, but not interesting enough to me to read all of the trilogy (only finished part 1).
However, for people interested in the time and place, it would be a good read.

I really liked the detailed description of life in rural England, and the ways of the people who were poor but overwhelmingly happy. There’s one part of the book that discusses a black-face act which doesn’t read well and makes a modern reader very uncomfortable. ( )

These memoirs or anecdotes of English village life in the 1880s were enjoyable but lacked a cohesiveness that I had expected from the TV adaptation of "Lark Rise to Candleford". Perhaps that structure or plot is more evident in the other two books of the trilogy... ( )

My mom and I fell in love with the BBC series Lark Rise to Candleford, so I was anxious to read the trilogy. I enjoyed this first book, although it is a bit dry in parts. ( )