<b>'Tender and elegant' <i>Guardian</i><br>'Unlike anything else in modern English literature' D.J. Taylor, <i>Spectator</i></b><br><br>A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village life he experiences a sense of renewal and belief in the future. Now an old man, Birkin looks back on the idyllic summer of 1920, remembering a vanished place of blissful calm, untouched by change, a precious moment he has carried with him through the disappointments of the years. Adapted into a film starring Colin Firth, Natasha Richardson and Kenneth Branagh, <i>A Month in the Country </i>traces the slow revival of the primeval rhythms of life so cruelly disorientated by the Great War.<br><br>With an introduction by Penelope Fitzgerald