The clouded mirror - 14

In these evocative and elegiac writings L. T. C. Rolt meditates on landscape, history, poetry, steam railways, vintage cars and the endless summer days of his childhood.

He also recalls his many happy boating voyages on Britain's canals: the peace and tranquillity, the wildlife and people, the changing scenery as he travelled from county to county, and the role he played in preserving the waterways for future generations.

Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too.It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).