One of eight children, Laurie Lee was born in 1914, in Slad, Gloucestershire, then a remote corner of England. As his father was absent, the large family – five children from his father’s first marriage and three from his second one – was brought up by his capable mother. “We lived where he had left us; a relic of his provincial youth; a sprawling cumbersome, countrified brood too incongruous to carry with him; and I, for one, scarcely missed him. I was perfectly content in this world of women . . . bullied and tumbled through the hand-to-mouth days, patched or dressed-up, scolded, admired, swept off my feet in sudden passions of kisses, or dumped forgotten among the unwashed pots.”
Lee’s memoir opens when he was just a baby – younger than three years old – and ends as he becomes a young man experiencing his first kiss. “I turned to look at Rosie. She was yellow and dusty with buttercups and seemed to be purring in the gloom; her hair was rich as a wild bee’s nest and her eyes were full of stings. I did not know what to do about her, nor did I know what not to do. She looked smooth and precious, a thing of unplumbable mysteries, and perilous as quicksand.”
This beloved classic describes a lost world, a world reflecting the innocence and wonder of childhood, and illuminating an era without electricity or telephones. This is England on the cusp of the modern era, but it could have been anywhere. This may explain why Cider with Rosie became an instant bestseller when it was published in 1959, selling over six million copies in the UK alone, and continues to be read by children and adults all over the world.
CRITICAL PRAISE
“A remarkable book written with such dazzling verbal imagery and such relish in all the sensations of being alive that it is magically contagious.”
—New York Times“Remains as fresh and full of joy and gratitude for youth and its sensations as when it first appeared. It sings in the memory.”
—The Sunday Times (London)A charming look at the loss of innocence into a world of understanding.
—The Midwest Book Review