Ronald Blythe CBE
(1922 - 2023)
Chronicler of English Life
Ronald Blythe is one of Britain’s most beloved writers, admired for deep and joyful reflections on the nature of existence. Best known for his classic work Akenfield (1969), Ronnie (as he wanted everyone to call him) captured the voices and traditions of the English countryside with grace, empathy and wit.
More than 40 books covering many forms and fields often explore themes of time, community and the natural world. Writing until his 95th year, in the magical setting of Bottengoms, he contributed extensively to literary culture with thousands of essays including studies of John Clare, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, William Hazlitt and George Herbert. A long-running Word from Wormingford column in the Church Times offered lyrical meditations on immediacy and eternity - on the changing and returning seasons, the Anglican calendar and quiet rhythms of life in East Anglia. Ronald Blythe’s writing stands as a testament to the enduring beauty of landscape and language, rootedness and human connection.
Photo: Ronald Blythe with a glass of sherry 2023 - copyright by Zoé Brown
BIOGRAPHY
Blythe Spirit - The Remarkable Life of Ronald Blythe
by Ian Collins
Published by John Murray Press
on the 7th November 2024
‘As a boy I dreamed of scholars and saints wandering around markets and cornfields, and of artists and poets sitting under the trees.’
Ronald Blythe (1922-2023), author of the inimitable Akenfield, was a prolific and poetic chronicler of rural and spiritual life, nature and literature. He spent a joyful century close to his Suffolk roots, time travelling in his imagination and publishing forty books and thousands of essays. His wide creative network included John and Christine Nash, Cedric Morris, Benjamin Britten, E. M. Forster, Patricia Highsmith and Richard Mabey.
From finding Thomas Hardy in February rain and John Clare in country tracks, to talking to his white cat and reading through a dragonfly’s wings, the Blythe gift was to marvel in the everyday. His writing was intimate, meditative and often laced with a wry humour, inviting readers to share his enchanting perspective on the world. Yet few knew the ‘real’ Ronald Blythe. Leaving school at 14, he educated himself in libraries, churches and walks in the East Anglian landscape. He never spoke about early poverty and traumatic experience in the war, while his sexuality was kept private except from those closest to him.
Drawing on unparalleled access to letters, notebooks, published works, drafts, and conversations from decades of friendship, Ian Collins tells the full story of Ronald Blythe for the first time. The result is a sensitive, revelatory portrait which celebrates a fascinating, complex man and casts new light on one of our greatest writers.
‘An intimate and insightful portrait of the peerless observer of rural life’ RICHARD MABEY
‘Moving, candid, vivid, it is all that we could hope for in a memoir of this unique and treasured writer’ ROWAN WILLIAMS
