From the father of English nature writing: a superb selection of essays about rural England in the 1800s, with an introduction by the celebrated writer Richard Mabey

Richard Jefferies was the most important and imaginative observers of the natural world in the nineteenth century. Trekking across the English countryside, he recorded his responses to everything from the texture of an owl's feather and "noises in the air" to the grinding hardship of rural labor. This fantastic selection of his essays and articles shows a writer who is brimming with intense feeling, acutely aware of the land and those who work on it, and often ambivalent about the countryside. Who does it belong to? Is it a place, an experience, or a way of life? In these passionate and idiosyncratic writings, almost all our current ideas and concerns about rural life can be found.

Celebrated nature writer Richard Mabey's introduction to his selection of Jefferies' work discusses the author's life, his views on the paradoxes of rural life, and his place in the tradition of nature writers, and helps us see Jefferies in a whole new way.

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