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England is surrounded by a fringe of mud and pearls - tidal flats and marshes, holiday parks and petrochemical works, jagged cliffs and silver beaches. It has the isles of Canvey, Sheppey, Foulness, Wight and Dogs. Mersea, Wallasea, Two Tree and Rat. And the wild and rockier places of Lundy, the Scillies, Hilbre, the Farnes. Then there's the deserted wartime forts, oil platforms, lost lands of Doggerland and Lyonesse and off-shore wind turbines. These islands and their inhabitants not only cast varied lights on the mainland, they also possess their own peculiar stories, from the Barbary slavers who once occupied Lundy, to the ex-major who seized a wartime fort in the North Sea and declared himself Prince of Sealand. Ian Crofton embarks on a personal journey to a number of the islands encircling England, exploring some that were once places of refuge or holiness, and others that have become locations for prisons, rubbish dumps and military installations. He shows the ways in which England's islands have been formed and how they are constantly changing and his book is filled with excellent natural description, comic encounters, history and culture and he is the most engaging travelling companion. 286pp, 16 pages of colour photos, maps.