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A fascinating portrait of country life across the centuries, as told by the nation’s greatest diarists.
The unique beauty of the British countryside has been celebrated down the ages in music, poetry, and art. It has also been celebrated in countless private diaries. This delightful treasury gathers together the very finest - from Rev Gilbert White’s journal of life at his famous home in Selborne to Beatrix Potter’s holiday diaries from Perthshire. Elsewhere, the thoughts of Dorothy Wordsworth and John Fowles rub shoulders with the words of Queen Victoria, Siegfried Sassoon and Roger Deakin.
Together, these private records, which have been arranged as a diary of the calendar year, paint a rich and surprising portrait of a landscape and a life we think we know so well.
“This is an altogether life-enhancing compendium … It reminds us how the countryside is rapidly changing, and how, today, one person’s fallow field is another’s luxury development or power station.”
daily Mail
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“The arch-editor appears to have scoured the hedgerows, rolled over boulders and scaled Britain’s mountains in his search. For he has unearthed a diverse range of authors - from literary greats such as Hardy and Scott; to playwrights and poets, such as Bennett and Sassoon to more contemporary sources, like Roger Deakin and Derwent May.”
scottish Field
“A fascinating portrait of country life across the centuries told by the nation’s greatest diarists … dip into it each day to see how endlessly gripping and entertaining everyday life can be.”
country Life
“Collectively the entries give a fascinating insight into the lives and values of people as well as the country in which they live. It is not so much of an insight into the British Countryside, as an insight into Britain the country.”
good Book Guide
“Delightful.”
Giles Foden
observer
Edited by Alan Taylor
Alan Taylor is a journalist and is currently the Editor of the Scottish Review of Books. Formerly, he worked for The Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday and the Scotsman, where he was Managing Editor. In an earlier incarnation he was a reference librarian. He is the co-editor of two other anthologies: The Assassin’s Cloak and Those Who Marched Away (both published by Canongate).