20th Century Classics Series

Adrian Bell (1901-1980) was born in Lancashire and grew up in London but wished for a life in the open air. In 1920 he apprenticed himself to a West Suffolk farmer, an experience that would inspire him to farm on his own. His celebrated trilogy Corduroy (1930), Silver Ley (1931) and The Cherry Tree (1932) grew out of that same raw material.
Silver Ley takes up at the conclusion of Bell's apprenticeship, whereupon he persuaded his parents to acquire a nearby farm of 50 acres where he could into practice what he had learned of farming. However Bell was living through straitened post-war times that presented a challenge to even the most seasoned agricultural hands, and he had to endure seven lean years, though his commitment to the task he set himself never dimmed.

Apple Acre

by Adrian Bell

Published December 1964

Food rationing, blackouts, and the threat of invasion became part of everyday life in Britain during the Second World War. Yet despite the wartime austerity and growing mood of unease, Adrian Bell and his wife went about their business in Suffolk, happil.

Corduroy

by Adrian Bell

Published 1 January 1996

These volumes comprise Bell's celebrated trilogy of novelized memoirs set in the West Suffolk countryside between the two World Wars. The lasting fascination of all three books lies in the contrast between the natural hopefulness of their young author and the economic hopelessness of the scene to which he has committed his life. "A fine and delightful achievement."--The Times (London) Adrian Bell was a journalist on the Observer before becoming a farmer in East Anglia.