Richard Jefferies

<p>For Edward Thomas, Richard Jefferies (1848-87) was more than a nature writer: he was a guiding spirit of the English landscape who affected a profound influence upon Thomas''s own writings. From his boyhood days, Thomas regarded Jefferies'' <b>The Amateur Poacher</b> (1879) among his favourite books for its eerie capture of ''the free air-open'', and as Thomas himself grew into an adept chronicler of the English countryside he would return to his mentor with this astute critical biography. <br><br>First published in 1909, <b>Richard Jefferies</b> is a subtle account of the nineteenth-century writer''s life and an illuminating study of a body of work which Thomas once described as ''a gospel, an incantation''.</p>