The English Companion

An idiosyncratic A-Z of England and Englishness

In this witty and stylish companion to Englishness Sunday Times columnist Godfrey Smith takes us on a leisurely but perceptive tour of all that he holds dear in England and the English. It is very much an informal ramble, as if in the company of an old friend. He treats us to a display of sparkling and knowledgeable comments on our national life from Churchill to Pubs, Elgar to Rugby, Bertie Wooster to George Orwell, British Beef to the National Lottery and from Fish and Chips to Evelyn Waugh.

'A most entertaining book'
- Kingsley Amis

'A mixture of eccentricity and scholarship, highly entertaining'
- A.J.P. Taylor

'Godfrey Smith writes beautiful pithy English, he venerates the beauties of English towns and countryside, luxuriates in English freedoms, cherishes the riches of English civilisation, loves his country'.
- John Keegan