- Published: 29 November 2022
- ISBN: 9781784744540
- Imprint: Chatto & Windus
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 400
- RRP: $42.99
The Captain's Apprentice
Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Story of a Folk Song
















- Published: 29 November 2022
- ISBN: 9781784744540
- Imprint: Chatto & Windus
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 400
- RRP: $42.99
A sadistic murder and the staggering words of a song drive Davison's obsession to unravel this vivid story of lives, landscapes and musical inspiration. No stone is left unturned in the meticulous gathering. Her gift is a work of love and infinite care
Keggie Carew, Costa Award-winning author of DADLAND
This is a hugely intriguing, sensitively woven and at times unexpectedly moving book. What begins as an investigation into one English folk song and one twentieth-century English composer's interaction with it spirals outwards into a galaxy of related tales, discoveries, insights and surprises. It is written from the heart, an elegy to lost landscapes, to nearly forgotten communities and their cultural legacies, relived and newly honoured in the pages of this thoroughly absorbing book
Howard Goodall, author of THE STORY OF MUSIC
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and its weaving of biography, social history and folk song
Steve Roud, author of FOLK SONG IN ENGLAND