Nearest Earthly Place to Paradise

Shropshire has inspired many writers over the centuries: its bucolic rolling fields and orchards, its dramatic wild hills and moors, its ramshackle market towns, its patchwork of copses and hedgerows, its bleak and beautiful mountains. Extracts from Charles Dickens to Tom Sharpe, from Kathy Swift to A.E. Houseman, from Bill Bryson to Pete Postlethwaite, are matched with stunning photographs by Geoffrey Taylor, who has captured the landscapes that drew out the words.