Raymond Williams, from “Three Around Farnham” [from The Country and the City]

In The Country and the City, Raymond Williams considers how representations of urban and rural spaces in English literature are shaped by and respond to economic and social contexts. The following selection is drawn from a chapter that discusses the work of three authors—William Cobbett, Jane Austen, and Gilbert White—in terms of class dynamics; Williams’s reading of Austen focuses on her work’s response to the increase in class mobility that occurred during her lifetime.

Raymond Williams, from “Three Around Farnham” [from The Country and the City]