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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2005-12 > 1133562469


From: "Colleen" <>
Subject: Re: Arthur Mee
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 22:27:49 -0000
References: <000901c5f78d$3038b7c0$0201a8c0@FRED>


Lucky you, Heather. I've seen references to Mee's 'Enchanted Land', what's
does it cover that the county books don't?

Colleen - also in wet Essex


----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred" <>
To: <>
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 10:10 PM
Subject: RE: [Ess] Re: Arthur Mee


> 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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