The Gamekeeper At Home: Sketches Of Natural History And Rural Life (cambridge Library Collection - British And Irish History, 19th Century)

Richard Jefferies (1848–87) remains one of the most thoughtful and most lyrical writers on the English countryside. He had aspirations to make a living as a novelist, but it was his short factually based articles for The Live Stock Journal and other magazines, drawn from a wealth of knowledge of the rural community into which he had been born, which when brought together in book form brought him recognition (though not wealth) and which continued to be read and admired after his early death. The Gamekeeper at Home and The Amateur Poacher (also reissued in this series) were both collections of essays in the style of reminiscences of a rural way of life which, though never idyllic, was by the 1870s beginning to undergo a period of rapid change, through both the onset of mechanisation and agricultural depression. Cover......Page 1 The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of Natural History and Rural Life......Page 4 ©......Page 5 PREFACE......Page 10 CONTENTS......Page 12 I. THE MAN HIMSELF—HIS HOUSE, AND TOOLS......Page 14 II. HIS FAMILY AND CASTE......Page 34 III. IN THE FIELDS......Page 58 IV. HIS DOMINIONS : —THE WOODS—MEADOWS — AND WATER......Page 81 V. SOME OF HIS SUBJECTS : DOGS, RABBITS, 'MICE, AND SUCH SMALL DEER'......Page 102 VI. HIS ENEMIES—BIRDS AND BEASTS OF PREY—TRESPASSERS......Page 129 VII. PROFESSIONAL POACHERS. — THE ART OF WIRING GAME......Page 155 VIII. THE FIELD DETECTIVE—FISH POACHING......Page 179 IX. GUERILLA WARFARE — GUN ACCIDENTS — BLACK SHEEP......Page 206 Richard Jefferies (1848-87) remains one of the most thoughtful and most lyrical writers on the English countryside. The Gamekeeper at Home is a collection of reminiscences of a rural way of life which by the 1870s was beginning to undergo a period of rapid change.