Flora Thompson's most prolific period as an author was perhaps the twelve years 1916-28 when she lived in Liphook, Hampshire as the postmaster's wife, but this work is now largely forgotten following the world-wide success she achieved later with 'Lark Rise to Candleford', published as a trilogy in 1945 and never out of print since.

In Liphook, following the end of the First World War and the birth of her third child, she settled down into what seems a very happy period during which she enjoyed exploring the surrounding heathland and wrote a number of articles and short stories, some of which were based on her new-found surroundings and others on memories of her youth in Oxfordshire.

Encouraged by meeting Dr Ronald Macfie, she collected together some of her poems and in 1921 found a publisher for them in a booklet entitled Bog Myrtle and Peat – republished here.

She started a postal writers' circle called 'The Peverel Society' in which aspiring authors all over the country gave each other support and inspiration, and she found a regular outlet for her own writing in a magazine called The Catholic Fireside which accepted contributions from her in the form of both literary criticism and nature notes, alternating each fortnight. Her nature notes, which she called 'The Peverel Papers,' have since been republished as a single volume.

For her writers' circle, she herself published 'The Peverel Monthly' which was distributed among members, and it was here that she started to serialise her novel The Gates of Eden in monthly instalments.

Only a few editions of 'The Peverel Monthly' survive, so we are not able to see more than a few examples of this work in progress – but after her death a complete manuscript was found in her effects. It was offered to Oxford University Press, but they decided not to publish with the comment: "It has charm but is distinctly dated, though I can well imagine that in fifty years' time from now it might be published for the first time as a discovery".

Over 75 years have now passed and, although the same criticism may still perhaps be made of the work, her reputation as an author is now surely secure enough for us to read it as an interesting insight into her journey seeking to find the right genre for her talents. A journey which eventually was successful.