I am certain that there are many on both sides of the Atlantic who consider my observations on the United Kingdom eccentric, to say the least. I am equally certain that anyone who understands or shares the lifelong habit of reading that I have both cherished and cultivated will recognize (or at least identify) the origin of many of my interests—or obsessions, if you please. Having spent years reading works by such authors as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, the Brontës, Angela Thirkell, Stella Gibbons, Arthur Ransome, Beatrix Potter, Anthony Trollope, …