By weaving history, family stories, travelogue and ecology, Richard
Morris reveals how Yorkshire took shape as a landscape and in
literature, legend and popular regard.
We descend into the
county's netherworld of caves and mines, and face episodes at once brave
and dark, such as the part played by Whitby and Hull in emptying Arctic
waters of whales, or the re-routing of rivers and destruction of
Yorkshire's fens. We are introduced to discoverers and inventions, meet
the people who came and went, encounter real and fabled heroes, and
discover why, from the Iron Age to the Cold War, Yorkshire has been such
a key place in times of tension and struggle.
In a wide-ranging
and lyrical narrative, Morris finds that for as far back as we can look
Yorkshire has been a region of unique presence with links around the
world.
"Reading the book is like watching the author sift through layers of time: whatever will he turn up next? ... There is a wealth of fascinating information
- I'd not known, for example, that the fashion for naming houses
'Windyridge' (as both my father and grandfather called theirs) derived
from the popularity of a 1912 novel of that title by Willie Riley" —
Blake Morrison, Guardian
"Engrossing ... Aims to look beyond the Eee By Gum stereotypes to
explore the intersections between Yorkshire's landscape, language and
identity, and reflect too on how outsiders perceive the country" — The
Bookseller