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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2005-12 > 1133561421


From: "Fred" <>
Subject: RE: [Ess] Re: Arthur Mee
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 22:10:21 -0000
In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20051201204806.029cb610@ntlworld.com>


Yes, there are 41 volumes, including "Enchanted Land". I have them all! I
have bought them in second-hand bookshops all over the country. There are
also two books in the same series: "The King's Channel Islands" - Guernsey
and The Bailiwick of Jersey by two different authors. Also "The Queen's
Scotland" - eight volumes (I only have "Edinburgh and the Lothians") - and
"The Queen's Wales" - two volumes: North Wales and South Wales. Apparently
in the late 1940s/early 1950s the publishers started a new series: "The
People's France", but this was not completed.

According to an article I have here, he was born in 1875 in Stapleford, near
Nottingham. He lived on Eynsford Hill, Kent.

Who remembers his "Children's Newspaper"? Many of my "useless" bits of
knowledge come from the ten volumes of his "Children's Encyclopaedia" that
my parents invested in at great expense when I was young.

Heather in wet Essex


-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Warn [mailto:]
Sent: 01 December 2005 20:54
To:
Subject: Re: [Ess] Re: Arthur Mee

Colleen,

I think *we* can claim Arthur Mee as a Kent man! <vbg>.

He lived in Hextable, next to Swanley, in the parish of Sutton at Hone.

My copy of The King's England / Gloucestershire says "in 41 Volumes"
- this includes an introductory volume.

My copy is date April 1950, although originally published in 1938.

So, unless AM edited more volumes, 41 it is.

HTH

Phil
Orpington, Kent

At 18:22 01/12/2005, Colleen wrote:

>I agree, his county books are lovely. aren't they? So beautifully
>written. Mee obviously greatly loved our English heritage and these
>books were very much a labour of that love. I have Mee's Middlesex
>and Kent too. Anyone know how many county books he wrote altogether?
>
>Mee was writing his county books in the early1940s, maybe earlier,
>so he would have been researching this from, say, the late 1930s to
>1940s, I suppose, possibly earlier. I imagine he was getting on a
>bit when he wrote them, so he straddles two eras, the 19th and 20th
>century and though the only 60, 70, 80 years ago, as Gill has
>pointed out, much of the heritage he was recording has been lost to
>development. Good on you Arthur, you left us a lovely record of our
>Essex heritage and that of other counties too.
>
>Colleen
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Delia Gleave" <d@deliagleave.f9.co.uk>

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