Time and a Place

Annotation

There anchoring, Peter chose from Man to hide,There hang his Head, and view the lazy TideIn its hot slimy Channel slowly glide .GeorgeCrabbe, eighteenth-century poet, clergyman and surgeon-apothecary, is bestknown for 'Peter Grimes', the tale of a sadistic fisherman that inspiredBenjamin Britten's opera of the same name. The brutal crimes and 'tortur'dguilt' of Grimes play out within the bleak, improbably beautiful setting ofAldeburgh. While Crabbe has fallen in and out of fashion, the Suffolk town andits landscape have continued to captivate writers and artists, includingBritten, Ronald Blythe, Susan Hill and Maggi Hambling - all drawn to the starkcoastline, eerie mudflats and open skies.In ATime and a Place, Frances Gibb engages afresh with Crabbe's writing -tracing, for the first time, the resonance of this place in his life and work. She delves into his creative struggles, religious faith, romantic loves andopium addiction. Above all, she explores the continual lure - for Crabbe andthose who have followed - of the 'little venal borough', and the land and seabeyond.