Book
The Forest
Set in and around England's New Forest, the novel follows local families from the creation of the royal hunting ground after the Norman Conquest to the twentieth century. Foresters, landowners, clergy, smugglers and labourers encounter royal privilege, religious upheaval, civil war, enclosure and social change while remaining tied to the same woods and villages. The landscape provides the central continuity in a story about custom, ownership and survival.
The recurring families allow long-term changes in land use to be experienced through inheritance and custom. Royal hunting rights, common grazing, timber, enclosure and later conservation all alter who may use the same landscape and on what terms. The novel therefore makes the New Forest a record of English social history, with political change repeatedly translated into disputes over ordinary access to land.
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