Bibliography

England and Englishness: A Select Bibliography

David L.W. Ashton, Life Member                                                                                              

Compiled for The Royal Society of Saint George.

This Society was founded in 1894 to defend and promote the English way of life.  HM Queen Elizabeth II graciously granted the Society a Royal Charter in 1963.  “Its role is primarily educational, promoting the shared cultural heritage of the English-speaking speaking world, and focusing on younger generations whose most valuable inheritance is our national history and culture.”

Patriotism and identity are matters of deep feeling. These are not created artificially by literature, although both are expressed and strengthened in words and music as well as public activities and private memories. Our main purpose is to reinforce, at a time of rapid change and outright opposition, the morally legitimate and increasingly needed appreciation of the culture and character of a particular people who shaped a beloved northern homeland, and contributed to other lands within and beyond the Crown Commonwealth.  This is especially necessary when many children today are left with limited knowledge and students are even encouraged to feel ashamed of their ancestors. Deliberate denigration may have become more widespread and intractable under a pretext of so-called “equality and diversity”, but is not entirely unprecedented:

“Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals…. What have they to offer but a vague internationalism, a squalid materialism, and the promise of impossible utopias?” – Winston Churchill, *The Royal Society of St George (1933).

Once regarded as a high civic virtue, patriotism at any rate in its original English form is being presented as problematic or indeed nefarious. Its advocates are today are sometimes treated in certain circles as unethical outlaws.  Documentation is provided below of organised “academic” efforts to corrode and demolish Englishness itself by disparaging or deconstructing, in various ways, its authentic expression in art, literature, music, exemplars, ceremonies and institutions.  Our own long declared educational objective has been falsely condemned as outmoded “xenophobia”, or a reactionary expression of reprobate “racism, sexism, colonialism and elitism”, and consequently resisted.  Such ideologically driven opposition evades the basic truth that the English, like other peoples, resemble an extended family, internally aware of their own identity, manifested in a located domain and visible heritage, and indelibly recorded in their continual evolution. 

Our Society is authorised by royal charter to “defend the strength of England” against all hostile activities.      Our “native” culture – in all its antiquity, substance, variety and value – shall not fade from the world that its progenitor people share, with others of equal entitlement to their own distinctive traditions. “What task”, asked the early English historian William of Malmesbury, “could be more agreeable than to tell of the benefits conferred on us by our ancestors, so that you may get to know the achievements of those from whom you have received both the basis of your beliefs, and the inspiration to conduct your life properly?”

By its very publication this booklist also hopefully contributes to the true values of free speech, civic courage, fair play, good manners, productive work and educational excellence.  For what are monuments, if virtues no longer bloom?

 Titles no longer in print or available in local libraries can often be obtained inexpensively online or through inter-library loan, and further content details are mostly accessible through internet search. 

GENERAL & HISTORICAL

 Asterisks recommend important items.

*Ackroyd, Peter. Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination. Vintage 2004. Pp.544. In literature, painting, music, architecture, philosophy & science, the quality is interlinked & quintessential.

Baldwin, Earl (Stanley). On England. 1926/Penguin 1937. Pp.246. Bucolic ruminations begin with his address to *The RSSG.

*Barker, Sir Ernest (ed). The Character of England. Readers Union 1950. Pp.xii,595. Chapters by distinguished writers on the land & people, individual & community, religion, government, law, industry, education, science, language, philosophy, humour, press, visual arts, music, outdoor life, games, homes, habits, sea, warfare, &c.

Barley, Nigel. Native Land. Penguin 1990. Pp.163.   This anthropologist thinks that, although some clichés no longer hold true, our rituals, customs & ambiguities still make Englishness a discernible category.

Beggs, Bryan. England’s Story. TVC 2014. Pp.152.  For young readers.

Betjeman, Sir John (Stephen Games ed). Tennis Whites & Tea Cakes. Murray 2008. Pp.x,451. Selections from the Poet Laureate’s writings on 26 aspects of Englishness.

*Blake, Lord Robert (ed). The English World: History, Character & People. Thames & Hudson.1982. Pp.268. Texts by thirteen experts, a well-illustrated “coffee table” book of exceptional value.

*Bowle, John. England, a Portrait. Readers Union 1968. Pp.262.

————— . The English Experience: A survey of English history. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1971. Pp.523.

————— . The Imperial Achievement. Penguin 1977. Pp.592. “Testimonial to Pax Britannica.”

Bridges, Sir Tom Lt-General (ed). Word from England. English Universities Press 1940. Pp.250. Prose & poetry anthology compiled for HM Forces.

Briggs, Asa. A Social History of England. Penguin (rev) 1999. Pp.x,402.

*Brown, Ivor (ed). A Book of England. Collins 1958. Pp.511.  Quality anthology.

Brogan, D. W. The English People. Hamish Hamilton 1943. Pp.260. American observations during WW2.

*Bryant, Sir Arthur. The Lion & the Unicorn. Collins 1969. Pp.351. Christian sincerity & ardent patriotism characterise the prolific output of this good-natured historian, including this essay collection, whose meticulous research and mellifluous style, once acclaimed by other scholars and readers across the party-political spectrum, have been unjustly disparaged by those who despise his sentiments.

———————-.  History of Britain & the British People: 1. Set in a Sliver Sea. Guild 1984. Pp.xiv,470.

———————-.  2.  With Prof. John Kenyon. Freedom’s Own Island. Guild nd. Pp.568.

———————–. 3. Search for Justice. Collins 1990. Pp.318. Posthumous additions from other works.

Bryson, Bill (ed). Icons of England. Black Swan/CPRE, 2010/Penguin 2016. Pp.36X. *Foreword, HRH The Prince of Wales.  Over 90 contributors from Kate Adie to Benjamin Zephaniah. 

Bulwer-Lytton, Sir Edgar (ed. Standish Meacham). England & the English. 1830/Chicago UP 1972. Pp.474.

Butterfield, Sir Herbert. The Englishman and his History.  Cambridge UP/Archon 1970. Pp.142.

Chamberlin, Russell. The Idea of England. Thames & Hudson 1986. Pp.240. Undeservedly ignored.

*Churchill, Sir Winston (ed. Timothy Baker). The Island Race. Cassell 1964. Illustrated. Pp.310. 

Collier, Price. England & the English, from an American point of view. Duckworth 1909. Pp.360.

Collini, Stefan. English Pasts: Essays in history & culture. Oxford UP 1999. Pp.360.

Collins, Michael. (Introd Prof. Dan Brown). St George & the Dragons: The making of English identity. CreateSpace 2012. Pp.324.  Based on research for *The RSSG.

*Colls, Robert. Identity of England. Oxford UP 2004. Pp.422. “There has been an England and an English since at least 937….the territory has stayed roughly the same and the people have continued to call themselves English” but “political pluralism will insist on the erasure of core identity, of any sort”.

*Conway, David. A Nation of Immigrants? Civitas 2007. Pp.viii,104. A truthful demographic history.

De Sélincourt, E. English Poets, and the National Ideal. OUP 1915. Pp.119.

Dixon, W. Macneile. The Englishman. Hodder & Stoughton 1938. Pp.221.  Character, genius, people, the Bible, Shakespeare.

Elton, Geoffrey R. The English. Wiley-Blackwell 1995.Pp.264.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. English Traits. 1856/Cosimo 2007. Pp.234.

Featherstone, Simon. Englishness: Twentieth-century popular culture & the forming of English identity.  Edinburgh UP 2008. Pp.224. Mentions *The RSSG.

Finn, Rex Welldon. The English Heritage. Right Book Club 1937. Pp.264.

Ford, Ford Madox (ed Susan Haslam). England and the English: A Trilogy. 1907. Carcanet 2003. Pp.368.

Fox, Kate. Watching the English: The hidden rules of English behaviour. Hodder (rev) 2014. Pp.592.  From queues to the weather.

*Giles, Judy & Tim Middleton (eds). Writing Englishness 1900-1950. Routledge 1995. Pp.xi,285. A convenient sourcebook for students of “national identity” including 64 extracts and several hundred additional references, albeit in a critical commentary that, nevertheless, presumes no knowledge of “sociological theories of gender, class & culture” (amply “compensated” by other material from this particular publisher).

Hanson, Gerry. England My England: A treasury of all things English. Portico 2012. Pp.224.

*Harris, Alexandra. Romantic Moderns. Thames & Hudson 2015. Pp.320. History and meaning of Englishness in 20^th century writers and artists, beautifully illustrated.

*Inge, William Ralph. England. 1926/Benn rev. 1953. Pp.xxvi,284.

—————————. Our Present Discontents. Putnam 1938. Pp.351.

*Ingrams, Richard (ed). England. Collins 1989. Pp.239. Idiosyncratic anthology plus wood engravings.

James, Lawrence. Warrior Race: A History of Britain at War. Abacus, 2002. Pp.xv,864.

*Jenkins, Simon Sir. A Short History of England. Profile/National Trust 2012. Pp.352.  A concise, readable account from the author of excellent books on English churches, houses & scenery, and National Trust Chairman 2008-14. “No one should leave education untutored in the narrative of the English nation, to become fodder for fools & extremists.”

Jennings, Paul (ed). The English Difference. Aurelia 1974. Pp.144.  Plus ca change.

Jerrold, Douglas. England: Past, Present & Future. Dent 1950. Pp.341.

*Johnson, Paul. The Offshore Islanders: England’s people from Roman occupation to the present. Pelican 1975. Pp.635.  “One of the most active races in the world.”

*Kingsmill, Hugh (ed). The English Genius. Right Book Club 1939. Pp.xiii,285. Religion (Inge), Verse (Belloc), Humour (Hesketh Pearson), Monarchy (Charles Petrie), War (General Fuller), Sea (Alfred Noyes), Snobbery (Rebecca West) & 7 other essays.

Kipling, Rudyard. A Book of Words. Macmillan 1928. Includes his *RSSG speech.

*Knox, Collie (ed). For Ever England: An Anthology. Cassell, 1950. Pp.244. *Foreword, Lord Queenborough, RSSG President.

*Kumar, Krishan. The Making of English National Identity. Cambridge UP 2010. Pp.384. An erudite outsider looks inside.

———————-. The Idea of Englishness: English Culture, National Identity & Social Thought. Routledge 2015. Pp.224. Fairly balanced & objective, he notes Earl Baldwin’s *RSSG address.

*Lacey, Robert. Great Tales from English History. Abacus 2008. Pp.xix,523.  Men and women who made the nation great from earliest times to the DNA discovery.   Suitable also for young readers

Lewis-Stempel, John (ed). England: The Autobiography. Penguin 2006. Pp.480. 2000 years of eye-witness history.

*Mandler, Peter. The English National Character. The history of an idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair. Yale UP 2006. Pp.x,346. The writer attempts to “debunk” one snapshot “idea” after another to discredit them all, thereby successively dismantling the national house brick by brick, apparently unable as an outsider to empathise with the continuously inherited sentiments of the “homeowners” within.  However, his book contains useful information, its 32-page booklist considerably supplementing this RSSG Bibliography.

Massingham, H.J. Genius of England. Chapman & Hall 1937. Pp.282.  A prolific writer, especially on rural values, who notes also an influence on our New Zealand relatives.

Mawson, Christian (ed). Portrait of England. Penguin 1942. Pp.222.  Inspirational prose & poetry for wartime.

Maillaud, Pierre. The English Way. OUP 1945. Pp.270. A critique by a friendly French resident.

Mayer, Tony (tr Christopher Sykes). La Vie Anglaise. Gollancz 1960. Pp.190. Illustrated by Osbert Lancaster, this French perspective is socially dated but still amusing, except for its concluding advice that, facing a multitude of dangers, including dependence on imported food in a competitive world, the English must open their eyes “before events force them do so” if they are to defend “the right to say what they want to whom they want” and other freedoms, for which thousands sacrificed their lives.

Miller, John & Sid Waddell. Roots of England. BBC 1980. Pp.208.

*Milsted, David. Brewer’s Anthology of England and the English. Orion, 2003. Pp.531. Indispensable cornucopia.

Morton, H. V. I Saw Two Englands. Methuen 1942. Pp.296. Impressions close to the outbreak of WW2 demanding political heroism.

Mount, Harry.  How England Made the English. Penguin 2013. Pp.368. 

*Nevinson, Henry W. Ourselves. BBC 1933. Pp.48. Essay on “national character” introducing Arthur Bryant’s broadcasts.

Nichols, Beverley. News of England, or a Country without a Hero. Cape, 1938. Pp.316. 

 Oldershaw, Lucian et al. England, a Nation. BiblioBazaar, 2009.Pp.270. Includes G. K. Chesterton’s *“Essay on Patriotism”.

*Orwell, George. The English People. Batsford 1947. Pp.48/US reprint 1982.  A left-wing libertarian, this famous patriot later felt uncomfortable over the fogeyish tone – “breed faster, work harder” – of his contribution to a famous series on this country.

Our Way of Life. Introd. HRH The Duke of Gloucester. Country Life 1951. Pp.152. Authoritative essays on a then stable and homogenous heritage: Faith, constitution, parliament, justice, sea, cathedrals, poetry, music, art, farming, cricket.

Ousby, Ian. The Englishman’s England: Taste, Travel & the Rise of Tourism. Thistle 2016. Pp.240.

*Paxman, Jeremy. The English: A Portrait of a People. Penguin 2007. Pp.320. “Countries that do best…have a coherent sense of their own culture.”

Porter, Roy (ed). Myths of the English. Polity 1993. Pp.288.

*Priestley, J.B. The English People. Heinemann 1973. Pp.256.

—————— (ed). Our Nation’s Heritage. Dent 1939. Pp.192.

Proud, Linda & Valerie Petts. Consider England. 1994. Pp.144. Artworks.

Read, Herbert (ed). The English Vision. 1939/Routledge 2013. Pp.368.  Anthology.

Readman, Paul. Storied Ground: Landscape & the Making of English National Identity. Cambridge UP 2018. Pp.348.

Redlich, Monica, Irene Thornley & Sigurd Christensen. Everyday England. Duckworth 1968. Pp.187. For foreign visitors.

Renier, J.G. The English, are they human? Williams & Norgate 1931. Pp.288.

Reviron-Piegay, Floriane (ed). Englishness Revisited. Cambridge Scholars 2009. Pp.425.

Rowse, A.L. The English Spirit – Essays in history & literature. Macmillan (rev) 1966. Pp276.

Santayana, George. Soliloquies in England & Later Soliloquies. 1922/Ann Arbor 1967. Pp.viii,264.

Seeley, Sir John. The Expansion of England. 1883/1891/Forgotten Books 2016.  Pp.376.  Almost contemporary with the RSSG foundation.

Shahani, Ranjee. The Amazing English. A. & C. Black 1948. Pp.158.  A friendly Indian appreciation.

Skidelsky, Robert. Britain since 1900: A Success Story? Vintage 2014. Pp.xxi,472.  Lords cross-bencher & historian Prof. Skidelsky reviews national trials & triumphs during the same “lifetime” as the RSSG, affectionately placing tentative hopes for the future in our “tough, acrid, creative, enterprising, humorous” & “kind and tolerant” character.

*Smith, Godfrey (ed). The English Reader. Pavilion 1988. Pp.300. Well-chosen prose passages & poems.

*Starkey, David. Crown & Country: A history of England through the Monarchy. Harper 2011. Pp.488.

Steen, Duncan & Nicolas Soames. The Essential Englishman. Cassell 1989.  Pp.224.

*Strong, Sir Roy. Visions of England. Vintage 2012. Pp.240.

——————–.  Coronation: From the 8^th to the 21^st Century.  Harper 2006. Pp.592.

Taine, Hippolyte. Taine’s Notes on England. 1872/Thames & Hudson 1957. Pp.296.

*Tombs, Robert. The English and their History. Penguin 2015. Pp.1024.  Prof. Tombs’ masterpiece refutes current attempts to deconstruct our inheritance into a collection of fantasies and/or fabrications. “As a group of people with a sense of kinship, a political identity and representative institutions, then the English have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world” with “the persistent capacity to come together in the face of danger”.

*Titchmarsh, Alan (ed). England, Our England. Hodder 2009. Pp.406. Pleasant anthology.

Trevelyan, George Macaulay. History of England. 1926/1952/Longman 1973. Pp.xxxiii,913. Illustrated edition introduced by Asa Briggs.

Treves, Paolo. England, the mysterious island. Gollancz 1948.  Pp.135.

Vansittart, Peter. In Memory of England.  Murray 1999. Pp.298.  A novelist’s viewpoint.

*Weight, Richard. Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940-2000. Pan 2003. Pp.xviii,866.  Richly informative & well-written, with three RSSG references; plus 90 pages of notes & bibliography.

Wingfield-Stratford, Esmé. The Foundations of British Patriotism. Right Book Club 1940. Pp.xv,430.

Wood, Michael. In Search of England: Journeys into the English past. Penguin 2000. Pp.xvi,336.

 

MISCELLANEOUS SPECIFIC STUDIES

Aldgate, Anthony & Jeffrey Richards. Best of British: Cinema & society from 1930 to the present. Tauris (rev) 2009. Pp.272.

Allen, Walter. The English Novel. Penguin 1981. Pp.384. “Our English novel is a unique product” (Mrs F. R. Leavis);  a “defence of English roots” (Angus Wilson).

Ashley, Peter. More from Unmitigated England. Adelphi 2007. Pp.192. Colour illustrations throughout plus a forthright & welcome justification of “nostalgia” by Jonathan Meades.

Aslet, Clive. The English House. Bloomsbury 2008. Pp.320.

Baxendale, John. Priestley’s England: J.B. Priestley & English Culture. Manchester UP 2014. Pp.224.

Berberich, Christine. The Image of the English Gentleman in Twentieth-Century Literature: Englishness and Nostalgia. Routledge 2016. Pp.218.

Binyon, Laurence. English Water-Colours. 1933/Girvin Press 2007. Pp.268.

Birley, Derek Sir. A Social History of English Cricket. Aurum 2013. Pp.400.

Blunden, Edmund. The Face of England. 1932/Pomona 2006. Pp.196. “Impossible for a serious writer to take such a tone now, without irony” (TLS 2017).

Bolingbroke, Henry St John, Viscount. Political Writings (ed. Isaac Kramnick). Appleton-Century-Crofts 1970. Pp.xxxi, 80. Includes “Patriot King” & “Spirit of Patriotism”.

Bragg, Melvyn. The Adventure of English. Sceptre 2016. Pp.384. “Biography of a language.”

——————-. 12 Books that Changed the World. Sceptre 2007. Pp.384.  Famous English ones.

——————-. Speak for England. Hodder & Stoughton 1978. Pp.448. Cumbrian interviews.

Breward, Christopher, Becky Conekin & Caroline Cox (eds). The Englishness of English Dress. Berg 2002. Pp.236.

Briggs, Katharine M. & Ruth L. Tongue. Folktales of England. Chicago UP 1968. Pp.208.

British Orations, from Ethelbert to Churchill. Dent 1960. Pp.369.

Buchan, John (Sir), later Lord Tweedsmuir (ed). A History of English Literature. Nelson 1933. Pp.xx,675. “The contributors have attempted throughout to show that English literature is a living thing.”

Burke, Thomas. The English & Their Country. British Council/Longmans Green 1945/Imperial War Museum reprint 2017. Pp.64.  For servicemen overseas.

Byrne, Matthew. English Parish Churches & Chapels. Shire 2017. Pp.160.

Cardus, Neville. English Cricket. 1945/Prion 1997. Pp.96.

Carré, Meyrick H. Phases of Thought in England. Clarendon Press 1949. Pp.xix,392. English contributions to philosophy, even in medieval Europe.

Chaudhuri, Nirad C. A Passage to England. Hogarth 1989. Pp.viii,229.  A concerned Indian admirer.

Churchill, Winston (Sir). Never Give In! Hachette 2004. Pp.558. His best speeches, including his 1933 address to *The RSSG.

Clifford, Sue & Angela King. England in Particular. Saltyard 2006. Pp.528. Celebrates “the commonplace, the local, the vernacular and the distinctive”.

Courtauld, George. Pocket Book of Patriots. Ebury 2005. Pp.viii,280.  Over 100 national heroes and heroines with achievements to inspire the younger generation, chosen by an author who found publishers and journalists hostile to the concept of patriotism.

De Madariaga, Salvador. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards. 1928/Pitman 1970. Pp.xvii,251. The historian defends his “essentialist” view of national characteristics, maintaining that English patriotism acts as an “instinctive” force within individuals.

Drinkwater, John. Patriotism in Literature. Williams & Norgate 1924/Home University. Pp.254.

Driver, Leigh. The Lost Villages of England. New Holland 2008. Pp.176.

Durgnat, Raymond. A Mirror for England. Faber 1970. Pp.xiv,336. Cinema from 1945 austerity to 1958 affluence.

Edgar, John G.  Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, stories of our ancestors. 1863/CreateSpace 2016.Pp.172.

—————–. Heroes of England. 1864/Gyan 2016.Pp.471.                                 

Edgerton, David. England & the Aeroplane: Militarism, Modernity & the Machine. Penguin 2013. Pp.xxix,227.

Elder, Isabel Hill. George of Lydda: Soldier Saint & Martyr. (Introd. Rt Hon Lord Queenborough,*RSSG President.) Covenant Books 1980. Pp.108.  A “British Israel” author.

Elson, Diane (ed). This Realm. World’s Work 1982. Pp.108. English prose & verse for children. 

Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jane. The Garden: An English Love Affair: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2003.  Pp.360.

Fox, Sir David Scott. Saint George: The saint with three faces. Kensal Press 1983. Pp.288.

Gervais, David. Literary Englands: Versions of ‘Englishness’ in Modern Writing. Cambridge UP 2010. Pp.300.

Girouard, Mark. The Return to Camelot: Chivalry & the English gentleman. Yale UP 1985. Pp.320.

Green, Martin. Children of the Sun. Pimlico 2001. Pp.552. Scintillating, well-researched account of English “decadence” from 1918 to 1957.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Grigson, Jane. English Food. Penguin 1998. Pp.400.

Groom, Nick. The Seasons: A Celebration of the English Year. Atlantic 2014. Pp.400.

Henderson, Jon. The Wizard: The Life of Stanley Matthews. Yellow Jersey 2014. Pp.416.

Hewson, Robert. Under Siege: Literary Life in London 1939-45. Quartet 1979. Pp.x,219.

Higgs, Edward. Identifying the English. Bloomsbury Continuum 2011. Pp.296. From seals to fingerprints & DNA forensics.

Hill, Paul. The Anglo-Saxons: The Verdict of History. Tempus 2006. Pp.223.

Hitchings, Henry.  Sorry! The English & their Manners. Murray 2013.  Pp.400. Good bibliography.

Hodgson, Vere. Few Eggs and No Oranges. Persephone 1999. Pp.624.  A woman’s WW2 diaries.

Hogg, Gary. The English Country Inn. Batsford 1974. Pp.248.

Hole, Christina. English Folk Heroes. Dorset Press 1992. Pp.182. King Arthur, Saint George, Robin Hood, &c.

——————–. English Custom & Usage. Batsford 1950. Pp.151. Dated.

——————–. English Folklore.  Batsford (rev) 1945. Pp.183.

Iggulden, Conn & David. The Dangerous Book of Heroes. HarperCollins 2009. Pp.481. English & Commonwealth real-life heroes and heroines.  Suitable for young readers.

Jackson, Kenneth. The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader. Fyfield 2004. Pp.312.

Jarski, Rosemarie (ed). Great British Wit. Ebury 2005. Pp.xx, 443. Many jokes by or about the English; a few “blue”.

James, Henry. English Hours: A Portrait of a Country. 1905/Tauris 2011. Pp.224.

Jenkins, Simon Sir. England’s Cathedrals. Little, Brown 2017. Pp.224.

Joannu, Mary.  Women’s Writing, Englishness & National & Cultural Identity. Palgrave Macmillan 2012. Pp.228.

Hemming, Henry.  In Search of the English Eccentric. Murray 2009. Pp.352.

Higham, Nicholas & M. J. Ryan. The Anglo-Saxon World. Yale UP 2015. Pp.215.

Hughes, Geoffrey. A History of English Words. Wiley 2000. Pp.242.

———————–. Political Correctness: A History of Semantics & Culture. Wiley-Blackwell 2009. Pp.336.

Knuth, Rebecca. Children’s Literature & British Identity: Imagining a people & a nation. Scarecrow Press 2012. Pp.222.  A critical exploration of over 30 authors, from Enid Blyton & Frank Richards to J. K. Rowling & P. L. Travers. “Through reading, children absorb an ethos of Englishness that grounds personal identity & underpins national consciousness…. Their stories form a new folklore tradition that provides social glue & supports a love of England & English values.” However, in recent years this process has been subverted, derailed or suppressed.

Lamb, Kevin. The Queen’s English: And how to use it. Michael O’Mara 2015. Pp.256.

Landau, Rom. Love for a Country. Faber 1939. Pp.391. Pre-WW2 interviews with prominent people, and favourable comment, by a Polish-German resident in “humble gratitude for all that I owe to England”.

Lang, Andrew (ed). Poet’s Country. The homes and haunts of the poets. Jack 1918. Pp.xii,363.

Lewis, Wyndham. The Mysterious Mr Bull. Robert Hale 1938. Pp.287.  Another stage in his iconoclasm.

Light, Alison. Forever England: Femininity, Literature & Conservatism between the Wars. Routledge 2013. Pp.300.

Lucas, John. England & Englishness: Ideas of Englishness in English Poetry 1688-1900. Hogarth Press 1990. Pp.228. 

Macdonald, N. P. (ed). What is Patriotism? Thornton Butterworth 1935. Pp.312. Answered by 20 diverse public figures. “This is the land which, great or small, we love.”

Maloney, Alison. St George: Let’s hear it for England! Random House 2010. Pp.192.

Marr, Andrew. The Diamond Queen. Pan 2102. Pp.xi,429. A former republican pays tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II & her monarchist people.

Masefield, John. St George & the Dragon. Forgotten Books 2012. Pp.112.                                                     

Mason, Philip. The English Gentleman: The rise & fall of an ideal. Deutsch 1982. Pp.240.

Matless, David. Landscape & Englishness. Reaktion 2016. Pp.368.

McCrum, Robert, William Cran & Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. Faber/BBC 1986/rev. 1992. Pp.468.

McKinstry, Leo. Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend. John Murray 2008. Pp.464.

Mikes, George. English Humour for Beginners. 1980/Penguin 2016. Pp.160.

Miles, David. The Tribes of Britain. Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2006.  Pp.496.

Moore, John. You English Words. Collins 1961. Pp.288. “Light as dreams/Tough as oak/Precious as gold/As poppies & corn” (Edward Thomas).

Moorman, J. H. A History of the Church in England. Morehouse 1980. Pp.512. “England became the people of a book, and that book was the Bible” (J. R. Green).

Mount, Ferdinand. English Voices: Lives, Landscapes, Laments. Simon & Schuster 2017. Pp.512.

Panecka, Ewa. Literature and the Monarchy. The traditional and modern concept of the office of Poet Laureate in England. Cambridge Scholars 2014. Pp.255.

Parissien, Steven. The English Railway Station. English Heritage 2014. Pp.172.

Parker. Peter. Housman Country: Into the heart of England. Abacus 2017. Pp.624.

Pevsner, Nikolaus. The Englishness of English Art. Peregrine 1984. Pp.229.

Piper, David. The English Face. Thames & Hudson 1957/National Portrait Gallery (rev) 1992. Pp.320.

Phelps, Gilbert. A Survey of English Literature. Pan 1965. Pp.413.

Pollard, Justin. Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England. Murray 2006. Pp.384.

Potter, Simeon. Our Language. Penguin (rev) 1976. Pp.207.

Powell, Enoch (ed John Wood). A Nation not Afraid. Hodder & Stoughton 1965. Pp.150. Includes his 1961 speech to *The RSSG (not 1964).

Richards, Jeffrey. Films & British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad’s Army. Manchester UP 1997. Pp.387.

Riches, Samantha. St George: Hero, Martyr & Myth. History Press 2005. Pp.xvi,236. A well-illustrated “radical reappraisal” by someone who thinks or hopes the original Christian personage might have been a Turk.  She quotes *The RSSG as founded to “encourage and strengthen the spirit of patriotism amongst all classes of the English people, and to foster and inspire our fellow-countrymen with a jealous pride in all that concerns the welfare and greatness of their native land, or the land of their fathers”.  She refers critically to John Ruskin who founded the Guild of St George, and politically corrects herself still further in Saint George: A Saint for All (2015) by saying that England has been arrayed with not only diverse “cultures, ethnicities” and “belief systems” but also “sexualities” and “genders” (sic) – “for many centuries”!

Roud, Steve. The English Year. Penguin 2008. Pp.688.

Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh. Dunkirk: Fight to the last man. Penguin Rev.2015.Pp.672.

Semmel, Bernard. Imperialism & Social Reform. Anchor 1968. Pp.272. Karl Pearson, Robert Blatchford, Joseph Chamberlain, William Cunningham, &c.

Sitwell, Edith (& Richard Ingrams). English Eccentrics. Pallas Athene 2006. Pp.372.

Slater, Stephen. The Complete Book of Heraldry. Hermes House 2014. Pp.256.  Illustrated throughout in colour, an excellent introduction to the history and rules of armorial bearings since Henry I.

Smith, Emma (ed). Shakespeare’s Histories: A guide to criticism. Wiley-Blackwell 2003. Pp.304.

Spufford, Frances. I May Be Some Time: Ice & the English imagination. Faber 2003. Pp.416.

Stapledon, Sir George. Disraeli and the New Age. Faber 1943. Pp.177.

Stapleton. Julia. Englishness & the Study of Politics: The social & political thought of Ernest Barker. Cambridge UP 1994. Pp.270.

 ———————-. Sir Arthur Bryant & National History in 20^th Century Britain. Lexington 2005. Pp.324.

———————–.Christianity, Patriotism, & Nationhood: The England of G. K. Chesterton. Lexington 2009. Pp.252.

Storey, Neil R. & Molly Housego. The Women’s Land Army. Shire 2012. Pp.56.

Sutherland, Douglas. The English Gentleman. Debrett 1978. Pp.xi,77. Stiff upper lip & tongue in cheek.

Taylor, Craig. Return to Akenfield: Portrait of an English village in the 21^st century. Granta 2007. Pp.288.

Thomas, Edward. A Literary Pilgrim in England. 1917/Oxford UP 1980. Pp.317.

Thompson, E.P. Customs in Common. Merlin Press 2009. Pp.547.  Marxist.

Thornton, A. P. The Imperial Idea & Its Enemies. 1959/Palgrave Macmillan 1985. Pp.408.

Thurley, Simon. The Building of England. Collins 2013.  Illustrated. Pp.544.  English Heritage expert looks at how English culture has shaped our architecture between the end of the Roman Empire and that of WW2.

Tillyard, E. M. W. The English Epic & its Background. 1954/Galaxy (OUP) 1966. Pp.548.

Timpson, John. Timpson’s English Eccentrics. Jarrold 1994. Pp.224.

——————-. Timpson’s Other England. Jarrold 1994. Pp.223.

Toth, Susan Allen. England for All Seasons. Ballantyne 1998. Pp.237. An American traveller.

Turner, W. J. (ed) Introd. Edmund Blunden. The Englishman’s Country. Collins 1945. Pp.319. Illustrated. Villages, country houses, towns, ports, gardens, inns.

—————– (ed) Impressions of English Literature. Collins 1944/1947.Pp.324. Illustrated. Authoritative essays on the Bible, poets, dramatists, historians, diarists, novelists & philosophers.  

Watson, Benjamin. English Schoolboy Stories: An annotated bibliography of hardcover fiction. Scarecrow 1992. Pp.229.

Watson, Colin. Snobbery with Violence: English crime stories & their audience. Faber 2009. Pp.256. 

Westwood, Jennifer & Jacqueline Simpson. The Lore of the Land. Penguin 2006. Pp.928. A comprehensive guide to legends around England.

Wilkinson, Clennell. The English Adventurers. 1931/Pomona 2006. Pp.118.

Williams, Charles. The English Poetic Mind. Nabu 2011. Pp.228.

Williams, Peter. The English Seaside. English Heritage 2006. Pp.176.

Wilson, Angus & Edwin Smith. England. Thames & Hudson 1971. Pp.224. Fully illustrated.

Wood, Michael. The Domesday Quest: In search of the roots of England. 1986/BBC 2005. Pp.224. “Crucial aspects of our culture” reach deep into “the Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Celtic in the British make-up…. The history of this small island off the shore of Europe became world history, its speech became world speech, and, perhaps more important, its social and economic experience also became that of the rest of the world”.

 

ASSORTED FICTION

Alexander, Patrick. Show Me a Hero. Pan 1980. Pp.271.  Modern civil war thriller.

Anon. The Reign of George VI, 1900-1925 1763/Rivingtons 1899. Pp.186. The great precursor of national defence novels. .

Ackroyd, Peter. English Music. Penguin 1993. Pp.416. A narrative suffused with precious cultural visions.

Allingham, Margery. Traitor’s Purse. 1941/Vintage 2006. Pp.208.

Amis, Kingsley. Russian Hide & Seek. Penguin 1981. Pp.251.  England under enemy occupation.

Ashley, Mike (ed). The Mammoth Book of Hearts of Oak. Robinson 2001. Pp.512. Naval stories.

Austen, Jane. Emma. “Knightley’s home…is the epitome of what Austen describes as ‘English verdure, English culture, English comfort’….not merely as a description, but as a virtue” (Paul Byrne).

Barnes, Julian. England, England. Vintage 2008.Pp.272. Instructive satire.

Bell, Adrian. Corduroy 1930; Silver Ley 1931; The Cherry Tree 1932. Trilogy republished by Faber 2011.

Bond, Alaric. His Majesty’s Ship. Fireship 2013. Pp.368.

Bowen, Elizabeth. The Heat of the Day.  1948/Anchor 2002. Pp.372.

Bragg, T.P. The English Dragon. Athelney 2001. Pp.256.  A radical protest with “strong language” against unwanted changes.

Briggs, Katharine M. British Folk Tales & Legends: A Sampler. Granada 1983. Pp.315. Mostly English.

Burgess, Anthony. 1985. 1978/Beautiful Books 2010. Pp.256. Trouble from political & religious fanatics – almost prophetic.  

Byatt, A. S. The Children’s Book. Vintage 2010. Pp.624. Beautiful stylist records the drift of the Edwardian spacious summer into the western front hell.

Chesterton, G. K. The Flying Inn 1914/CreateSpace 2016. Pp.140. “A hundred years later, there are elements which are little short of realistic” (Charles Moore).

Christie, Agatha. Secret Adversary. 1922/Cosimo Classics 2007. Pp.294.

———————. The Big Four. 1927/HarperCollins 2008. Pp.224.

Christopher, John (pseud). The Death of Grass. 1956/Penguin 2009. Pp.208. The author “ticks off the clichés of Englishness” as climate change unleashes a pandemic, but the existential apocalypse paradoxically provides its own stark lessons for tribal survival.

Clarke, T. E. B.  Passport to Pimlico Continuity Script. 1949/Studio Canal 2015. Pp.122.  ”Golden Age” Ealing Comedy [DVD available] that captures the “English traits of individualism, tolerance & compromise” (Robert Sellers).

Cooney, Anthony. Saint George, Knight of Lydda. Family Publications 2004. Pp.320.

Cooper, Susan. The Dark is Rising. 1973/Puffin 1976. Pp.267. The most “English” volume in her “Light versus Darkness” fantasy sequence for young readers.

Coward, Noel. Cavalcade. 1931/Grosset & Dunlap [Film Ed] 1932. Pp.139.

—————–. This Happy Breed. 1932/Film 1944. Collected Plays 4. Bloomsbury 2007. Pp.512. “I was born & bred in the suburbs of London, which I’ve always loved, and always will.” 

—————–. Peace in Our Time. Doubleday 1948. Pp.221. English resistance to Nazi occupation, partly inspired by but not modelled on Saki’s If William Came.

Craig, Patricia (ed). The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories. Oxford 1992. Pp.575.

Crompton, Richmal. William Does His Bit. Newnes 1941. Pp.252.  The perennial 11-year old joins in the war effort. “Richmal established her ever-growing cast of characters in a remarkably elastic & quintessential English village” (Mary Cadogan).

————————–. William and the Moon Rocket. Newnes 1954. Pp.248. As New Elizabethans, the Outlaws celebrate the Coronation.

Dahl, Roald. The BFG. Puffin 2013. Pp.224. The Queen has a positive role in this children’s story.

Dane, Clemence (Winifred Ashton). The Saviours. Heinemann 1942. Pp.vi,272. Seven remarkable wartime radio plays on the theme of returning Arthurian heroism.

Daninos, Pierre. Major Thompson Lives in France & Major Thomson and I.  Cape/Reprint Society 1959. Pp.315.   A friendly French humorist satirises a “stereotypical gent” with moustache & bowler hat.

Delderfield, R.F. A Horseman Riding By Trilogy. Book I – Long Summer Day.1966/Coronet 1990. Pp.576. “No person in this book is intended to represent a living character but rather a race of people in a corner of the country…. If any reader is looking for identification, let him seek it in the national spirit that, even in this day and age, still quickens the people of provincial England.” The second & third novels take the family through the two world wars until Churchill’s funeral in 1965.

Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. 1865/Wordsworth 1997. Pp.832. An author who “asserts the values of Englishness” (Valerie Kennedy).

Dickinson, Peter. The Changes Trilogy. Open Road Media 2015. Pp.436. “England in the future…less rather than more civilized. The whole country seems under a magic spell.” Young readers.

Dobbs, Michael (Baron). A Sentimental Traitor. Simon & Schuster 2012. Pp.400.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. His Last Bow. 1917/BBC 2013. Pp.288.

—————————.The White Company.1891/Murray 1968. Pp.370. A morale booster in WW2.

Drinkwater, John. Robinson of England. Methuen 1937. Pp.x,326.

Du Maurier, Daphne. Rule Britannia. Pan 1974.  Pp.301. American invasion.

Ebbutt, M. I. Hero Myths & Legends of the British Race. Harrap 1912. Pp.xxix,175.

Feasey, Lynette (ed). Old England at Play. Harrap 1944. Festival & fair playlets for young people, including Punch & Judy, St George & the Dragon & Everyman.

Fitz  Gibbon, Constantine. When the Kissing had to Stop. Pan 1962. Pp.252.  Soviet invasion.

Fleming, Ian. Moonraker. 1955/Vintage Classics 2012. Pp.352. “Today his presentation of alleged national characteristics would lead to criticism [of] insensitivity, if not racism” (Prof. Jeremy Black, The Politics of James Bond [2005] p.81).

Ford, Ford Madox. Parade’s End. 1924/Penguin 2012. Pp.864. A tetralogy on post-WW1 English values.

Forester, C.S.  Hornblower & the Atropos.1953/Penguin 2011. Pp.384.

Forsyth, Frederick. The Fourth Protocol. Arrow 2011. Pp.448.

Garner, Alan. Stone Book Quartet. Harper 2010. Pp.192. Young readers.

Gibbs, Philip Sir. The Cloud Above the Green. Book Club 1953. Pp.320.

Green, Roger Lancelyn. The Adventures of Robin Hood. Puffin 1956/1978. Pp.256. Young readers.

Greene, Graham. The Last Word & Other Stories. Penguin 1991. Pp.149.  Includes the story behind the patriotic film Went the Day Well.

Harris, Rosemary. A Quest for Orion. 1978/Puffin 1982. Pp.233. Young English people resist invasion.

Hawes, James. Speak for England. Vintage 2006. Pp.338. A wistfully inventive satire.                                                           

Herbert, Kathleen. English Heroic Legends. Anglo-Saxon Books 2010. Pp.268.

Higgins, Jack. The Midnight Bell. Harper 2017. Pp.336.

Hodges, Margaret. Saint George & the Dragon. Little, Brown 1990. Pp.32. Adaptation of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, suitable for children, illustrated by Trina Hyman.

Hollis, Christopher. Death of a Gentleman. 1943/Fontana 1957. Pp.192.

Hughes, Thomas. The Scouring of the White Horse. 1859/Sutton 1989. Pp.160.

Jacobs, Joseph (ed). English Fairy Tales. Kessinger 2004. Pp.284. “Who says that English folk have no fairy tales of their own?”

Johns, W.E. Capt. Biggles & the Black Peril.1935/Red Fox 2014.Pp.208. Russian threat.

———————. Biggles’ Big Adventures. Prion 2007. Pp.784. [“A Merseyside race relations official called for all public libraries to destroy their Biggles books”.]

Kent, Alexander/Douglas Reeman. For My Country’s Freedom. Arrow 2007. Pp.384.

———————————————. The Cross of St George. Arrow 2006. Pp.352.

———————————————-. In the King’s Name. Arrow 2012. Pp.256

Kerven, Rosalind. English Fairy Tales & Legends. National Trust 2008. Pp.224.

Kingsley, Charles. Hereward the Last of the English. 1886/CreateSpace 2012. Pp.390.

———————. Westward Ho!  1855/CreateSpace 2016. Pp.404.  

Kingsnorth, Paul. The Wake. Unbound 2015. Pp.384. “Eloquent ballad of English identity” (Mark Rylance).

Rudyard Kipling. Puck of Pook’s Hill. 1906/Macmillan’s Children’s Books 2016. Pp.368.

———————. Rewards & Fairies. 1910/Macmillan’s Children’s Books 2016. Pp.448.

Lawton, John. Riptide. Grove Press, 2013.Pp.368.

Le Carré, John. Call for the Dead. Penguin 2011. Pp.160.

Littlejohn, Richard. To Hell in a Handcart. HarperCollins 2001. Pp.246.  A vulgar protest against the “state” of the nation.

Lytton, Lord. Harold, Last of the Saxon Kings. HardPress 2012. Pp.732.

Marsden, John. The Tomorrow Series. Quercus 2014. Exemplary resistance by young Australians to an invasion.

Marshall, Sybil. Ring the Bell Backwards. Penguin 2000. Pp.480.

——————-. The Book of English Folk Tales. Duckworth 2016. Pp.384.

Macdonell, A.G. England, Their England. 1933/Macmillan & Pan 1978. Pp.207.

Masefield, John. A Book of Discoveries. 1910/HardPress 2013. Pp.376. Young readers.

——————–. Badon Parchments. Heinemann 1947. Pp.151.

McCaughrean, Geraldine.  Stories from Shakespeare. Orion Children’s Books 2017. Pp.176.

———————————. Britannia on Stage. 25 plays from British history. Orion Childrens 2000. Pp.224. “Colourful legendary moments in the history of our nation, not factual in every case, perhaps” but a “treasury of adventure, comedy, tragedy, heroes & villains”.

McEwan, Ian. Atonement. Vintage 2002. Pp.372. “Nobody writes better about England and the English than McEwan, and this is one of his most powerful novels” (Daily Express).

Mills, Clifford & John Ramsay. Where the Rainbow Ends. French 1951. Pp.68. The stage version.

Moore, John. The Brensham Trilogy. OUP 1985. Pp.673.

Morris, William. News from Nowhere. 1890/OUP 2009. Pp.256. England as a “Socialist Utopia”.

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Secker & Warburg 1949. Pp.xix,381. England has become the airbase of a totalitarian system, whose citizens are under TV surveillance or sedated with pop & porn, whose history is erased or routinely rewritten, and whose language is being reduced to “politically correct” newspeak. 

Panter-Downes, Mollie. Good Evening, Mrs Craven. Persephone 2008. Pp.240.  Wartime stories.

Pemberton, Sir Max. Pro Patria. Ward Lock 1901/Nabu 2010. Pp.316. Invasion beneath the Channel.

Powell, Anthony. Dance to the Music of Time. Fontana 1977. Set 12 vols. Five decades of English “upper class” life.

Price, Anthony. Our Man in Camelot. 1975/Futura 1982. Pp.224.

Priestley, J.B. It’s an Old Country. 1967/HarperCollins 1981. Pp.256.

Ransome, Arthur. Swallows & Amazons. 1930/Vintage Children’s Classics 2012. Pp.528. English “atmosphere”.

Rimington, Stella. Secret Asset. Arrow 2007. Pp.448.  Enemies within. The novelist was MI5 Director-General 1992-6.

“Sapper” (H. C. McNeile). The Original Bulldog Drummond, Vol.1. Three novels reprint. Leonaur 2010. Pp.412.

Sayers, Dorothy L. Busman’s Honeymoon. 1937/Harper 2012. Pp.448. “An ironic yet sustainable relation to a pastoral, stable, hierarchical England” (Susan Rowland).  The author wrote several essays defending Englishness.

Shaffer, Anthony. Sleuth. Marion Boyars 1970. Pp.93. Best film adaptation 1972. Clever satire on English snobbery based on the “whodunit” tradition.

Shakespeare, William. King John; Richard II (1597); Henry V (1599). The chief “Dead White European Male” of our “literary” opponents.

Shanks, Edward. The People of the Ruins. 1920/HiLo Books 2012. Pp.239. Dystopian warning from a patriotic poet.

Shaw, George Bernard. The Apple Cart. 1928/Penguin 1988. Pp.128. A famous Irish socialist’s extravaganza with particular resonance for English governance nine decades after it was first staged.

Sherriff, R. C.  Badger’s Green. Gollancz, 1930. Pp.112.

Sinclair, Andrew. King Ludd. Sceptre 1988. Pp.379. The final fantasy of his radical Albion Triptych.

Swift, Graham. England & Other Stories. Scribner 2015. Pp.288.

Thompson, Flora. Lark Rise to Candleford. 1945/Penguin 2008. Pp.544. H. J. Massingham’s Introduction argued for an English “peasantry” revival.

Thorpe, Adam. Ulverton. Vintage Classics 2012. Pp.432. “My books are an examination of what Englishness means.”

Tolkien, J. R. R. Lord of the Rings.  BCA 1991. Pp.1193. Single volume complete with maps & appendices, plus 50 colour illustrations; other editions exist. “Tolkien’s attempt, not so much to create a ‘mythology for England…as a mythology of England” (Prof. T. A. Shippey).

——————-. The Hobbit. Harper/Collins [film tie-in] 2013. Pp.400. Suitable for children, “its place is with Alice & Wind in the Willows” (TLS).

Trollope, Anthony. The Prime Minister. 1876/Oxford UP [World’s Classics] 2011. Pp.704.

Turner, Derek. Sea Changes. Radix 2012. Pp.456.

Wells, H. G. Mr Britling Sees It Through. 1916/Literary Licensing 2014. Pp.460.

Westall, Robert. The Machine Gunners. Macmillan 1975. Best appreciated in its original version.

Wheatley, Dennis. Black August. 1933/Arrow 1971. Pp.320. In a future crisis the Prince Regent leads his people against communist revolution.

White, Ethel Lina. The Wheel Spins. 1936/Fontana 1979. Pp.192. Reissued as The Lady Vanishes & adapted for cinema.

Williamson, Henry. Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight. Fifteen volumes, Macdonald 1951-1969.  The series reflects this prizewinning “nature” writer’s own “patriot’s progress” from frontline fighter, through fascist farmer, to rural recluse.

Willis, Ted (Lord). The Churchill Commando. Pan 1978. Pp.224. A morality tale from Dixon of Dock Green’s creator about a “private army” whose vigilantism goes too far.

Wilson, Alexander. Wallace of the Secret Service Spy Collection. Allison & Busby 2017.

Wilson, Angus.  No Laughing Matter. Faber 2011. Pp.480.

——————-. The Old Men at the Zoo. Penguin 1964. P.345.

Wodehouse, P.G. Week-End Wodehouse. 1939/Vintage 2010. Pp.431. “If in, say, 50 years Jeeves and any other of that great company…shall have faded, then what we have so long called England will no longer be” (Hilaire Belloc, Introduction).

 

POETRY

Baker, Kenneth (ed). English History in Verse. Faber (rev) 1989. Pp.xxv,448.

Brooks, Chris & Peter Faulkner (ed). The White Man’s Burdens: An Anthology of British Poetry of the Empire. Exeter UP. 1996. Pp.350

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales (tr David Wright). Oxford UP 2011. Pp.560. A sound modern rendering of the most famous work by the “father of English poetry” (Dryden). “He painted, in brief, almost the whole English nation“ (Emile Legouis).

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. The Collected Poems. Methuen 1933. Pp.403. Contains Ballad of the White Horse, which in “circumstances of defeat and victory…fits the English as perhaps no other poem does” (Dudley Barker 1974), & The Secret People.

Courtauld, George. England’s Best Loved Poems: The Enchantment of England. Ebury 2007. Pp.208.

Crossley-Holland, Kevin (translator). The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology. Oxford UP 2009. Pp.320.  Includes The Battle of Maldon.

Dobson, R. B. & J. Taylor. Rymes of Robyn Hood. 1976/Alan Sutton 1989. Pp.xxii,330. Introduction to the English outlaw with substantial quotation of relevant poetry.

Gardner, Brian (ed). The Terrible Rain: The War Poets 1939-1945. Methuen 1966/Magnum1981. Pp.xxv,227. Anthology of 119 poets.

Gilkes, Martin (ed). Tribute to England: An anthology. Hutchinson 1939. Pp.255. “Nations breed the poets they deserve.  Our English literature is one of the great literatures of the world, and the finest flower of it is our poetry…so large and of such indisputable quality.”

Goodwin, Daisy (ed). Essential Poems for Britain (and the way we live now). BBC/HarperCollins 2003. Pp.200.

Haslam, Anthony. Anthology of Empire. Grayson, 1932. Pp.496.  “A tribute to the Empire and the Motherland from its poets, living and dead” dedicated to The Prince of Wales (Patron, *RSSG).

Hewlett, Maurice. The Song of the Plow. Heinemann 1916. Pp.xi,243.  A poem on the theme that wartime service has bound the Saxon lower orders with their Norman rulers.

Hibberd, Dominic (ed). Poetry of the First World War. Macmillan 1981. Pp.247. Essays in an English Literature “Casebook Series” with abundant extracts.

Hill, Geoffrey (ed Kenneth Haynes). Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012 (including Mercian Hymns). Oxford UP 2015. Pp.990. “A Ruskinian Tory.”

 Hunter, Jane McMorland (ed) Favourite Poems of England. Illustrated. Batsford, 2014. Pp.176.

Kipling, Rudyard (Foreword, Mary Margaret Kaye) The Complete Verse. Kyle Cathie 1996. Pp.xxxi,704.

Layamon. Brut (ed. & tr. Sir F. Madden) 1847. A 13^th century Anglo-Saxon adoption of the Celtic Arthur as a hero who “should yet come to help the English”.

Leonard, R.M. (ed). Oxford Garlands: Patriotic Poems. Milford/OUP, 1914. Pp.128.

Levy, David (ed). The Never Setting Sun. Poems of Imperial England. Ensign 1976. Pp.64.  Austin, Dobson, Henley, Kipling, Newbolt, Watson.

Marr, Andrew. We British: The Poetry of a People. Fourth Estate 2016. Pp.672. Extracts embedded in a chronological narrative by an historian & former BBC Political Editor.

Masefield, John & Edward Seago. The Country Scene (including On England). Collins 1937. Pp.98.  Maritime authority and ardent royalist, Masefield was Poet Laureate from 1930 to 1967, & prolific author in several fields.

———————————————-.  A Generation Risen. Collins 1943. Pp.72.

Miller, Alice Duer. White Cliffs. 1940/Cole Press 2014. Pp.66. An American feminist: “In a world where England is finished and dead, I would not wish to live.”

Newbolt, Henry. The Island Race. Elkin Mattews, 1898. Pp.ix,119. The poet was an authority on the Royal Navy.

——————-(ed). Tide of Time in English Poetry. Nelson 1925. Pp.288. “Patriotism of the fine sort” (W.B. Yeats).

Nicolson, Harold (ed). England. English Assn/Macmillan. 1944. Pp.296. Valuable anthology.

Noyes, Alfred. Drake: An English Epic, Books I-XII. Blackwood 1908/Reink 2017. Pp.193. “The song of England has been captured by Alfred Noyes with a fullness of note, a fervour of love and a depth of understanding” (Walter Jerrold).

Polley, Jacob. Jackself. Picador 2016. Pp.80. The word plays on “myth & folklore – Jack Frost, jackdaws, applejacks, jack-o’-lanterns, then hitches them to an awareness of even older poetry, medieval & Anglo-Saxon” (Guardian).

Pudney, John. Collected Poems. Putnam 1957. Pp.175.  A sample of the author’s now neglected literary output.

Roberts, David (ed). Falklands War Poetry. Saxon 2012.Pp.144.

Russel, Nick (ed). Poets by Appointment. Blandford 1981. Pp.vi,201.  Laureate selections from Dryden to Betjeman.

Sackville-West, Victoria. The Land. Heinemann 1926/1939. Pp.96.

Salt, L. Godwin. English Patriotic Poetry. Cambridge UP  1911/1914. Pp.viii,69. Pitt Press Series for Schools.

Scott, R.P. & Katherine T. Wallas (eds). The Call of the Homeland. Blackie 1907. Pp.Xx,426.

Sidgwick, Frank (ed). Ballads & Poems illustrating English history. Cambridge UP 1907. Pp.viii,211. Pitt Press Series for Schools.

Sisson, C. H. Collected Poems. Carcanet 1998. Pp.544. “The author grounds his work in English landscapes” & “recalls the work of Eliot & Pound, and Hardy & Edward Thomas.”

Stokes, Richard. The Penguin Book of English Song: Seven centuries of poetry from Chaucer to Auden. Penguin 2018. Pp.926.

Thomas, Edward (David Wright ed). Selected Poems & Prose. Penguin 1981. Pp.295. Includes Lob & No Petty Case of Right or Wrong.

Tong, Raymond. Necessary Words. Athelney 2006. Pp.51.

Williamson, Craig (tr). The Complete Old English Poems. Pennsylvania UP 2017. Pp.1248.

Wylie, Michael (ed). Patriotic Poems. Jarrold 1994. Pp.128. A remarkably recent anthology.

Young, Francis Brett. The Island. 1944/Heinemann 1955. Pp.xii,451. An epic national history in verse dedicated to wife and country; “a goodly heritage”.

 

 MUSICAL INTEREST

Banfield, Stephen. Sensibility & English Song. Cambridge UP 1989. Pp.640.

Barber, Richard (ed.) King Arthur in Music. Brewer 2002. Pp.204.

Bishop, Julia & Steve Roud.The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. Penguin 2014. Pp.608.

Blom, Eric. Music in England. Pelican 1947. Pp.288.

Coward, Noel Sir. His Words & Music. Chappell nd. Includes Mad Dogs, Stately Homes, and London Pride (1941) “One of the greatest patriotic songs ever written, gentle & understated” (Norman Hackforth).

Duro, Stephen (arr). The Joy of More English Music for Piano. Music Sales 1998. Melodies suitable for young pianists from Elgar, Parry, Quilter & 12 other composers.

Elgar, Sir Edward & Alfred Noyes. Pageant of Empire. Enoch & Sons. 1924/Bookvika 2012. [*CDs. Edward Elgar, The Spirit of England & Music by Sir Hubert Parry, Ivor Gurney  &c/ Holst, Delius, Walton,&c.]

Fraser, David (ed). Fairest Isle: BBC Radio 3 Book of British Music. 1995. Pp.136.

Gifford, Denis. Bless ‘Em All! Fraser Stewart 1992. Pp.92. WW2 Song Book, Foreword Spike Milligan. “There’ll Always be an England” &c.

Hughes, Meirion Hughes & Robert Stradling. The English Musical Renaissance, 1980-1940. Manchester UP 2001. Pp.356. Political “construction” of national identity.

Kallioniemi, Kari. Englishness, Pop and Post-War Britain. Chicago UP 2016. Pp.267.

Lynn, Dame Vera. We’ll Meet Again: The Best of Vera Lynn. Wise/Music Sales 2009. Pp.64. Song book PVG.

Marshall-Luck, Em. Music in the Landscape. Robert Hale 2011. Pp.272.

Nettel, Reginald. Sing a Song of England. Adams & Dart/Phoenix House. 1954/1969. Pp.282. A social history of the traditional song.

Rayborn, Tim. A New English Music. McFarland 2016. Pp.277. Composers & folk traditions in the musical renaissance from the late 19^th to mid-20^th century.

Richards, Jeffrey. Imperialism & Music: Britain 1876-1953. Manchester UP 2002. Pp.544.

Scruton, Sir Roger. Understanding Music: Philosophy & interpretation. Bloomsbury 2016. Pp.256.

Stanford, Charles Villiers (ed). The National Song Book. 1905/BiblioLife 2009. Pp.260. Other editions exist.

Sweers, Britta. Electric Folk: The changing face of English traditional music. Oxford UP 2005. Pp.354.

Trend, Michael. The Music Makers. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1985. Pp.288. The renaissance from Elgar to Britten.

Vaughan Williams, Ralph. National Music & Other Essays. Clarendon (rev) 1996. Pp.328.

 

CRITICISM, COUNTER-ATTACK & CONTROVERSY

Bailey, Richard W. Images of English: A cultural history of the language. Cambridge UP 1992. Pp.xi,329. Prof. Bailey considers “pernicious” the notion that our mother-tongue is “better” than any other language – by means of a rich documentation that indicates otherwise. It would be difficult to translate this effrontery into Piraha or Sarantongo.

Barker, Sir Ernest. National Character & the Factors in its Formation. Methuen 1948. Pp.268.

Barnett, Lincoln. The Treasure of Our Tongue. Secker & Warburg 1966. Pp.253. Attacks “insidious” Social Linguistics. “In the health of the English language, the health of Western civilization may well reside.”  

Bateman, Anthony. Cricket, Literature & Culture: Symbolising the Nation, destabilising the Empire. Routledge 2009. Pp.248.  As “cricket has become almost synonymous with all that is English” (John Symons), this is a typical example of “deconstruction”.

Bennett, George. The Concept of Empire from Burke to Attlee 1774-1947. Black 1962. Pp.xix,434.

Betts, G. Gordon. The Twilight of Britain: Cultural nationalism, multi-culturalism & the politics of toleration. Transaction 2002.  Pp.389.

Bird, Hazel Sheeky. Class, Leisure & National Identity in Children’s Literature, 1918-1950. Palgrave Macmillan 2014.  A critical approach: note the timescale chosen.

Bowden, Jonathan, et al (eds) Introd. Prof. Antony Flew. Standardbearers. Bloomsbury Forum 1999. Pp.x,180. Varied “right-wing” essays on Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Disraeli, William Morris, Lord Salisbury, Arnold Bax, William Penney, & others.

Browne, Anthony. The Retreat of Reason. Civitas 2006. Pp.xiv,121.  A critique of “political correctness”.

———————–.  Do We Need Mass Immigration? Civitas 2002/pdf. Pp.173.

Conway, David. Disunited Kingdom. Civitas 2009. Pp.180. A national alternative to a “community of communities”.

Davies, Christie. The Strange Death of Moral Britain. Transaction 2006. Pp.288.

Caunce, Stephen et al (eds). Relocating Britishness. Manchester UP 2004. Pp.272.  More deconstruction.

Colinvaux, Paul. The Fates of Nations – A biological theory of history. Penguin 1983. Pp.272.

Cooke, Gavin. Britain’s Great Immigration Disaster. Fastprint 2012. Pp.231.

Ellis, John Martin. Literature Lost: Social agendas & the corruption of the humanities. Yale UP 1999. Pp.270. Exposition of the pervasively adverse impacts of ideological subversion on the appreciation of culture and its transmission to future generations.

Ferguson, Niall. Empire: How Britain made the modern world. Penguin 2004. Pp.448.

Furedi, Frank. What’s Happened to the University? Routledge 2017. Pp.214.

Gabb, Sean. Cultural Revolution, Culture War. How the Conservatives lost England & how to get it back. Hampden Press 2007. Pp.109.  A libertarian scholar exposes “equality & diversity”.

Goodhart, David. The Road to Somewhere: The populist revolt & the future of politics. Hurst 2017. Pp.256.

Happer, Richard. 365 Reasons to be Proud to be English. Pavilion 2014. Pp.208.

Hitchens, Peter. The Abolition of Britain. Continuum 2008. Pp.352. “All forms of subversion.”

Holderness, Graham (ed). The Shakespeare Myth. Manchester UP 1988. Pp.xvi,215. A sample volume in yet another neo-Marxist series committed to transforming a “social order that exploits people on grounds of race, gender, sexuality and class”. “Shakespeare has permeated English life like no one before or since….Through post-structuralist linguistics…psychoanalytic theories and feminist sexual politics, radical criticism” this revolutionary tract argues that this “‘Shakespeare myth’ functions…as an ideological framework” to sustain “delusions of unity, integration and harmony in the cultural superstructures”.

Honeyford, Ray. Race & Free Speech: Violating the taboo. Claridge 1992.  Pp.56.

Hume, Nick. Trigger Warning: Is the fear of being offensive killing free speech? Collins 2016. Pp.144

Kenny, Michael. The Politics of English Nationhood. Oxford UP 2017. Pp.320.

King, Bruce. The Internationalization of English Literature. Oxford English Literary History Vol.12, 1948-2000. Oxford UP 2006. Pp.400.  “After the wave of decolonization” & “large immigrant communities…can we still talk of the English nation as a cultural unit?”

Kingsnorth, Paul. Real England: The battle against the bland. Portobello 2009. Pp.320. “Englishness is our cultural identity…A nation is a people who feel they are bound together by a culture, a history, a language, a homeland…a shared sense of self…. English is – must be – still a recognisable cultural entity”.

Linsell, Tony. An English Nationalism. Athelney 2001. Pp.426. An important study.

—————— (ed). Views from the English Community. Athelney 2004. Pp.246.

——————-(ed). Our Englishness. Anglo-Saxon Books 2000. Pp.118. Seven very different contributors united by a shared “sense of Englishness” answer those who “deny the relevance or indeed the existence of an English nation”.

McGovern, Chris. Generations Betrayed: Cutting the roots of our national identity. June Press 2015.  Pp.14. The subversion of education, briefly described herein.

McKinstry, Leo. Turning the Tide. Michael Joseph 1997. Pp.288.  Remedies for decline.

Milne, Tony.  Myth of England: Debunking the Brexit Bible.  CreateSpace 2016.  Pp.310. “England’s view of history is just a myth…the miserable outcome of oppressive poverty written by the survivors…to justify the murder and rape”.

Niles, John D. The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England 1066-1901. Remembering, forgetting, deciphering & renewing the past. Wiley 2015. Pp.228.

Olusoga, David. Black and British: A Forgotten History. Pan 2017. Pp.624. Encyclopaedic, somewhat grievance-driven research, opening with an attack on Enoch Powell’s *RSSG theme of returning to an island identlty without postcolonial baggage.

Osmond, John. The Divided Kingdom. Constable/Channel 4 1988. Pp.278. “Englishness” in relation to devolution.

Page, Robin.  The Hunting Gene – Its people, its wildlife & its countryside. Bird’s Farm Books 2000. Pp.240.

The Prince Philip, HRH. The Environmental Revolution. Deutsch 1978. Pp.153. The Duke Edinburgh’s speeches touch on the impacts of population growth upon England and the world beyond.

Phillips, Trevor. Race & Faith: The Deafening Silence. Civitas/pdf 2016. Pp.90.

Plain, Gill. John Mills & British Cinema: Masculinity, identity & nation. Edinburgh UP 2004. Pp.254. An attempted dissection, based on politicised “gender, race, body” criteria, of a prominent popular icon; a significant example of targeted deconstruction of Englishness.

Powell, Enoch. Freedom & Reality. Paperfronts 1969. Pp.349. 88 Speeches, including his *RSSG address.

Rogers, David & John McLeod (ed). Revisions of Englishness. Manchester UP 2004. Pp.208. Unsympathetic attacks, collected by a Scot and an American, on our “antiquated” and “discreet” attempts at indigenous survival.                                                                                                                                                 

Rowell, Geoffrey (ed). The English Religious Tradition & the Genius of Anglicanism. Wipf & Stock 2009. Pp.256.

Ryden, Wendy & Ian Marshall. Reading, Writing, & the Rhetoric of Whiteness. Routledge 2014. Pp.200.

Samuel, Raphael (ed). Patriotism: The making & unmaking of British national identity. Vol. III. National Fictions. Routledge 2016. Pp.336.  For several contributors to this trilogy “loyalty to class, to gender, to ideology and to internationalism transcends, condemns and subverts what they see as the petty parochialism, the jingoistic successes and the transient claims of the bourgeois nation state…they do not like patriotism in any guise” (Prof. David Cannadine).

Sandbrook, Dominic. The Great British Dream Factory: The strange history of our national imagination. Penguin  2016. Pp.688. Popular culture.

Schwarz, Bill (ed). The Expansion of England: Race, ethnicity & cultural history. Routledge 1996. Pp.vi,262. Essays claiming that “colonialist” thoughts retain significance for English “identities”. 

Scrivener, P. English Witness to their Darkest Hour. Athelney 2008. Pp.176.

Scruton, Roger (Sir). England: An Elegy. Continuum 2006. Pp.280.  “An elegant & moving book…done with that passionate regret which can seed re-emergence” (Melvyn Bragg).

————————–  & Robert Rowthorn. England, and the Need for Nations. Civitas rev. 2006. Pp.64.

Shah, Idris. The Englishman’s Handbook.Octagon 2000. Pp.232.  The final volume of an unusual trilogy by an Afghan Sufi.

Smith, Anthony D. National Identity. Penguin 1991. Pp.x,227

Stevenson, Randall. The Last of England? Oxford English Literary History Vol.12, 1960-2000. Oxford UP 2006. Pp.642.

Turner, Graeme. British Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Routledge 1996. Pp.258. Shows how neo-Marxist, postmodern & black-identity ideologists (e.g. Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy) have attacked Englishness itself.

Ward, Paul.  Britishness since 1870. Routledge 2004. Pp.252.  More “deconstruction”.

—————. Red Flag & Union Jack: Englishness, Patriotism & the British Left, 1881-1924. Royal Historical Society 1998. Pp.240. 

Ward, Stuart (ed). British Culture & the End of Empire. Manchester UP 2001. Pp.xi,241. Relentlessly unsympathetic essays.

William, Michael. The Genesis of Political Correctness: The basis of a false morality. CreateSpace 2016. Pp.262.  Subverting freedom and patriotism in western countries through a revolutionary “egalitarian” ideology.

Webster, Wendy. Englishness and Empire 1939-1965. OUP, 2009. Pp.viii,253.  Prof. Webster’s critique includes film and TV. This author has also written on postwar “gender, ‘race’ & national identity” & was granted £100,000 towards a book that presents wartime England “in its finest hour [as] multiethnic and multinational”.

West, Ed. The Diversity Delusion. Gibson Square 2015. Pp.256.  A good study of “challenges” from multicultural inward mass-settlement, plus possible solutions.

West, Patrick. The Poverty of Multiculturalism. Civitas 2008. Pp.xvi,80. The “Anglo-Saxons and Celts” are entitled to think their “language, laws, religion and customs” are preferable to those of people who “want to come and live here” (Prof. Kenneth Minogue).

Wiener, Martin J. English Culture & the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980. Cambridge UP (rev) 2004. Pp.236.

Wilson, A.N. Our Times. Arrow 2009. Pp.xiii,481. Often considered this prolific author’s best non-fiction work, he regrets many profound changes to English life and politics during the reign of HM Queen Elizabeth II, but presents thereby a challenge to the active promotion of every Aim and Object of the renascent RSSG.

Winter, Trish & Simon Keegan-Phipps. Performing Englishness. Manchester UP 2015. Pp.196. Ethno-musicologists demand a “rethink” of “indigeneity and tradition”, yet another example of ethnocide by subversion.

Wright, Patrick. On Living in an Old Country. Oxford UP (rev) 2009. Pp.290.

——————–. The Village that Died for England. 1995/Faber (rev) 2002. Pp.512. Using the “lost village” of Tyneham, the writer elegantly sneers at past patriots, and seems pleased to “spit on their grave”.

 

 REFERENCE

Drabble, Margaret & Jenny Stringer (ed).  The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford UP 2007. Pp.804.

Fowler, H.W. & F.G. The King’s English 1906/Oxford UP/BCA 2003 ed. Pp.384.

Hanks, Patrick et al (eds). The Oxford Names Companion: The definitive guide to surnames, first names, and place names of the British Isles. OUP 2002. Pp.xvi,1264.

Head, Dominic (ed). The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge UP 2006. Pp.1275. Covering the English-speaking world, its introduction explains the enormous impact of politically motivated “race-gender-class” ideology upon writers, publishers and critics.

Lupack, Alan. The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend. OUP 2007.  Pp.512. Relevant to England.

Ousby, Ian. The Wordsworth Companion to Literature in English. NTC 2001. Pp.1056.  

Simpson, Jacqueline & Stephen Roud. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford UP 2016. Pp.424.

Smith, Godfrey. The English Companion: An idiosyncratic A-Z of England & Englishness. Penguin 1985. Pp.272.

 

ONLINE

Much “English” music and film are accessible on You Tube.

Wikipedia: “English People”; “English National Identity”; ”Culture of England”; “The Flag of England”; “St George’s Cross”; “Saint George”. 

English Heritage; The English Music Festival; Welcome to Icons of England; Redress of Past: Historical Pageants in Britain; The Children’s Poly-Olbion Project; This England; Queen’s English Society; The Monarchist League; College of Arms; Pictures of England; Campaign to Protect Rural England; Countryside Restoration Trust; English Hedgerow Trust

 

“All our past acclaims our future:  Shakespeare’s voice and Nelson’s hand, Milton’s faith and Wordsworth’s trust in this our chosen and chainless land.   Bear us witness: come the world against her, England yet shall stand.” — Swinburne