The Notebook of a Nature-lover

The Notebook of a Nature-lover recalls Devon as it was some eighty years ago. This enchanting anthology was originally written as a regular column for the Sunday Referee, and reflects Henry Williamson’s unique ability to communicate his understanding of and his passion for the English countryside, whether it be observing salmon and sea-trout leaping in the River Bray (his classic tale of Salar the Salmon was written during this same period), watching partridges in his field and a spider in its web, walking on Dartmoor and Exmoor, or tales of his young children exploring the natural world around them.

Henry Williamson (1895-1977) is best remembered today for his much-loved Tarka the Otter and his other nature stories – The Old Stag, The Lone Swallows and The Peregrine’s Saga among them. A farmer during the Second World War, he recounted his experiences in The Story of a Norfolk Farm and in four collections of his journalism collected and published posthumously by the Henry Williamson Society (available as e-books): Chronicles of a Norfolk Farmer (1937-1939), Heart of England (1939-1941), Green Fields and Pavements (1941-1944) and A Breath of Country Air (1944-1946). After the war he returned to North Devon where, between 1951 an 1969, he wrote his major work, the semi-autobiographical 15-volume novel sequence A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight.