‘The farming community revisited: complex nostalgia in Sarah Hall and Melissa Harrison’

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay examines a complex nostalgic twenty-first century trend in the farming-community novel about rural England, tracing its roots back to the earlier twentieth century, when a much stronger tradition of rural fiction – in some ways comparable to the contemporary resurgence of nature writing – had its heyday, especially concerning the impact of the First World War on farming communities and rural life, and the ensuing social consequences in the interwar era. With a focus on work by Sarah Hall and Melissa Harrison, the historical comparison reveals how these authors revisit this tradition, but make it new by foregrounding contemporary concerns about extinction, and complicity in its causes.