NEW MAY 2021. H V Morton was a travel writer who worked in the first half of the twentieth century. He is best known for a set of books 'In search of England', 'In search of Wales' and so on. This one, called 'The Land of the Vikings: from Thames to Humber', deals with the five counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. He comments that "Colchester should be the starting point for all intelligent tours of England."

The only date which appears is where he signs the introduction, and that is January 1928. The book includes fifteen black and white drawings by Frank Mason. You can see a full list of the contents HERE.

A group of the author's devotees have formed the H V Morton Society.  It emerges from their website that this book is one of his scarcest. Second-hand prices reflect this, and at the time of writing this description only one of the copies available costs less than a hundred pounds!

They also believe that this book is one of a series sponsored by the LNER, though the company is nowhere mentioned by name. This makes sense. Richard Clay's of Bungay imply that they were the publisher: they were and still are a major printer, but during that period publishing was not a common core feature of their work. The strongest evidence that the LNER was behind the book lies in the map which appears on the end papers, drawn specially to accompany the book - railways are shown prominently on it, but only LNER ones. There is a glaring gap between the GCR main line and the GNR main line where the Midland route should be, for example, and the LMS line out of Cambridge to Bletchley is conspicuous by its absence.

The file has bookmarks and is word-searchable. It will be available to download as soon as payment has been made. You go to your account and click on ‘Downloads’. New customers create an account as they place their order.