Beth Lynch – författare

Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704) was one of the most remarkable, significant and colourful figures in seventeenth-century England. Whilst there has been regular, if often cursory, scholarly interest in his activities as Licenser and Stuart apologist, this is the first sustained book-length study of the man for almost a century. L'Estrange's engagement on the Royalist side during the Civil war, and his energetic pamphleteering for the return of the King in the months preceding the Restoration earned him a reputation as one of the most radical royalist apologists. As Licenser for the Press under Charles II, he was charged with preventing the printing and publication of dissenting writings; his additional role as Surveyor of the Press authorised him to search the premises of printers and booksellers on the mere suspicion of such activity. He was also a tireless pamphleteer, journalist, and controversialist in the conformist cause, all of which made him the bête noire of Whigs and non-conformists. This collection of essays by leading scholars of the period highlights the instrumental role L'Estrange played in the shaping of the political, literary, and print cultures of the Restoration period. Taking an interdisciplinary approach the volume covers all the major aspects of his career, as well as situating them in their broader historical and literary context. By examining his career in this way the book offers insights that will prove of worth to political, social, religious and cultural historians, as well as those interested in seventeenth-century literary and book history.

A stunning literary memoir about inheritance, loneliness and the healing power of gardening, about how nurturing a garden can help make a home in an unfamiliar place

'Beth Lynch's subtle and moving book is about the heart-work of finding and making a place for oneself in the world; the effort of putting down roots, the pain of tearing them up again, and how one grows to know another person or another landscape. Horticulture and human feelings twine together here - and what flourishes in the several gardens of this book is, in the end, hope' ROBERT MACFARLANE'I loved Beth Lynch's tender, wise meditation on grief, home, and the restorative magic of making a garden' OLIVIA LAINGOut of place and lonely after a relocation to Switzerland, Beth Lynch realises that she needs to get her hands dirty if she is to put down roots. And so she sets about making herself at home in the way she knows best - by tending a garden, growing things. The search for a garden takes her across the country, through meadows and on mountain paths where familiar garden plants run wild, to the rugged hills of the Swiss Jura where she begins to plant her paradise. WHERE THE HORNBEAM GROWS is a memoir about carrying a garden inwardly through loss, dislocation and relocation, about finding a sense of wellbeing in a green place of one's own, and about the limits of paradise in a peopled world. It is a powerful exploration of how, in nurturing a corner of the natural world, we ourselves are nurtured.

For over five decades Beth Lynch has been drawn back, over and again, to a rocky spot on the North Cornwall coast. Her earliest memories of the cove are bound up with idyllic family holidays; as she grows older, however, her sense of connection with the place grows deeper and more complicated. This slippery interface of land and sea - a site of sheer edges and ledges, peculiar rock formations and eroding, tumbling slate - becomes her childhood refuge from anxiety and school bullying.Around the time of her parents' deaths, strange things start to happen in and around the cove, and Lynch is left wondering how well she really knows this minute section of coast that draws her so ineluctably. Is it the cove, or is it her? What secrets does the cove have to share? Is she safer staying away? Unfolding through a medium of salt and slate, the elemental indifference of Atlantic Cornwall, The Cove is a lyrical meditation on being a revenant, on haunting and being haunted. Through encounters with quarrymen, wartime women and a enigmatic archaeologist - along with JMW Turner, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, and Thomas and Emma Hardy - Lynch contemplates what happens when our deepest fears materialise, reflecting on mortality and the nuanced ways in which we take leave of our dead. She explores the profound impacts of change - in ourselves, in places and in the transformative dance between the two.

'A book that stays with you and widens your perception of how people and place intertwine' MATT COLLINSFor over five decades, Beth Lynch has been repeatedly drawn to a rocky spot on the North Cornwall coast, where her earliest memories are rooted in idyllic family holidays. Following the deaths of her parents, strange occurrences around the cove leave Lynch questioning how well she truly knows this place of slate that so irresistibly calls to her. Why has it become so unsettling? Is she safer staying away?Through encounters with quarrymen, wartime women and an enigmatic archaeologist - along with JMW Turner, Tennyson, Trollope and the Hardys - The Cove reflects lyrically on change: in ourselves, in places and in the transformative dance between the two.