Abstract
IN 1872 there appeared in The Times a long and remarkable letter describing the life of a Wiltshire farm labourer. It was so different from the current ideas on the subject that it was drastically criticized by the Liverpool Mercury : “A Mr. Richard Jefferies, dating from Coate Farm, Swindon, has managed somehow or other to get two columns and a quarter of the Times to air his notions in, and very funny notions they seem to be-there is no doubt that he has moved about amongst hundreds of labourers ; but that he has ever adequately seen them in the sense of understanding and knowing them we should be very slow to believe”. But Jefferies was not crushed, and seven years later, in 1879, he wrote a series of articles on country life which were published in book form in 1880 under the title “Hodge and his Masters”. For some reason or other the book was not re-issued until 1937. Messrs. Faber and Faber have now re-published it with an introduction by Mr. Henry Williamson, who has wisely reprinted the original Times letter and the Liverpool Mercury's criticism thereon.
A Classic of English Farming
Hodge and his Masters. By Richard Jefferies. Edited and with an Introduction by Henry Williamson. Pp. 340. (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1946.) 10s. 6d. net.
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RUSSELL, E. A Classic of English Farming. Nature 159, 588 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159588a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159588a0