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John Richard Jefferies (6 November 1848 – 14 August 1887) was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
farm had a great influence on him and provides the background to all his major works of fiction. Jefferies's corpus of writings covers a range of genres and topics, including ''Bevis'' (1882), a classic children's book, and ''After London'' (1885), a work of science fiction. For much of his adult life he suffered from
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, ...
, and his struggles with the illness and with poverty also play a role in his writing. Jefferies valued and cultivated an intensity of feeling in his experience of the world around him, a cultivation that he describes in detail in ''
The Story of My Heart ''The Story of My Heart'' is a book first published in 1883 by English nature writer, essayist, and journalist Richard Jefferies. The book has been described as a "spiritual autobiography" where Jefferies idealises the English countryside as a s ...
'' (1883). This work, an introspective depiction of his thoughts and feelings about the world, gained him the reputation of a nature mystic at the time, but it is his success in conveying his awareness of nature and people within it, both in his fiction and in essay collections such as ''The Amateur Poacher'' (1879) and ''Round About a Great Estate'' (1880), that has drawn most admirers.
Walter Besant Sir Walter Besant (14 August 1836 – 9 June 1901) was an English novelist and historian. William Henry Besant was his brother, and another brother, Frank, was the husband of Annie Besant. Early life and education The son of wine merchant Willi ...
wrote of his reaction on first reading Jefferies: "Why, we must have been blind all our lives; here were the most wonderful things possible going on under our very noses, but we saw them not."


Life and works


Early life

John Richard Jefferies (he used the first name only during his childhood)Thomas (1909), 29. was born at Coate in the parish of
Chiseldon Chiseldon is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It takes its name from the Old English cisel dene, or gravel valley, being noted in the Domesday Book as ''Chiseldene''. The village lies on the edge of ...
, near
Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population ...
, Wiltshire, the son of a farmer, James Luckett Jefferies (1816–1896).Rossabi (2004). His birthplace and home is now a museum open to the public. James Jefferies had the farm from his father, John Jefferies, who had been a printer in London before returning to Swindon to run the family mill and bakery. Richard's mother, Elizabeth Gyde (1817–1895), always called Betsy, was the daughter of John Jefferies's binder and manager. These relationships are mirrored in the characters of Jefferies's late novel ''Amaryllis at the Fair'' (1887); and the portraits of the family in the novel tally with external accounts of the Jefferies. James Jefferies, like Iden in ''Amaryllis'', was devoted to his garden, while struggling to make a financial success of the farm. The garden, lovingly recalled in ''Wood Magic'' and ''Amaryllis'', also made a strong impression on the memories of those who knew the Jefferies at the time. Betsy, like Iden's wife, seems to have been dissatisfied with life on the farm: "a town-bred woman with a beautiful face and a pleasure-loving soul, kind and generous to a fault, but unsuited to a country life." The farm was very small, with of pasture; and a mortgage of £1500 would later begin a slide into debt for James Jefferies, who lost the farm in 1877 and became a jobbing gardener. But these difficulties were less evident in Richard's childhood. The situation was much as in ''After London'' (1885), where the farming and gardening Baron is again based on James Jefferies: "The whole place was thus falling to decay, while at the same time it seemed to be flowing with milk and honey". One part of the Jefferies family is strikingly missing from the books. In ''Wood Magic'', ''Bevis'' and ''Amaryllis'', the hero (or heroine) has no siblings; only ''After London'' gives the main character brothers and depicts the imperfect sympathy between them. James and Elizabeth's first child, Ellen, had died young; but Richard had two younger brothers and a younger sister. Jefferies spent several of his earlier years, between the ages of four and nine, with his aunt and uncle, the Harrilds, in Sydenham, where he attended a private school, returning to Coate in the holidays. His uncle, Thomas Harrild, was a son of the printing innovator
Robert Harrild Robert Harrild (1 January 1780 – 28 July 1853) was an English people, English printing pioneer. Harrild was the founder of the business Harrild & Sons, his history is recorded in 'The House of Harrild' by Edward Liveing written in 1949, w ...
. Jefferies kept a close friendship with Mrs. Ellen Harrild (nee Gyde) and his letters to her are an important source for biographers. At Coate, he spent most of his time in the countryside; and much of what he narrates of Bevis is true of himself. His father had taken him shooting when he was eight; and already at nine he had shot a rabbit. He was soon spending much of his time hunting (both with a gun and with snares) and fishing. He also, like Bevis, added home-made rigging to a boat to sail on the reservoir; and he is said to have built his own canoe, like the hero of ''After London''. At the same time, he became a keen reader: favourite books included Homer's ''
Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', ...
'', Percy's ''Reliques'', ''
Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of West ...
'' and
James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought ...
's '' The Pathfinder'', which served as a model for mock battles fought on a field between the farm and the reservoir. In November 1864, at the age of sixteen, he and a cousin, James Cox, ran off to France, intending to walk to Russia. (Cox, slightly older than Jefferies, worked for the
Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
and had a little money saved.) After crossing the channel, they soon found that their schoolboy French was insufficient and returned to England. Before they reached Swindon, they noticed an advertisement for cheap crossings from
Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...
to America and set off in this new direction. The tickets however, did not include the cost of food; and the boys were forced to return to Swindon after an attempt to pawn their watches had drawn the attention of the police. Jefferies left school at fifteen and at first continued his habits of solitary wanderings about the local countryside. He dressed carelessly and allowed his hair to grow down to his collar. This, with his "bent form and long, rapid stride made him an object of wonder in the town of Swindon. But he was perfectly unconscious of this, or indifferent to it." He helped little on the farm (his only enthusiasm was for chopping and splitting wood) and was regarded as something of an idler. The gun that he always carried drew the suspicion of local landowners – one said, "That young Jefferies is not the sort of fellow you want hanging about in your covers". Finally, early in 1866, he started work as a newspaper reporter for the '' North Wiltshire Herald''. For several years he worked as a reporter, contributing not only to the ''North Wiltshire Herald'', but also to the ''Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard'' and to the ''
Swindon Advertiser The ''Swindon Advertiser'' is a daily tabloid newspaper, published in Swindon. The newspaper was founded in 1854, and had an audited average daily circulation at the end of 2017 of 8,828. It claims to have been the UK's first provincial 'penny ...
''. The editor of the ''Swindon Advertiser'', William Morris, an antiquarian and local historian, lent Jefferies books and encouraged his early writing attempts. Jefferies himself developed an antiquarian interest in the countryside: he published articles on local history in the ''North Wiltshire Herald'' and was the first to notice a stone circle near Coate Farm. He was also spending much time on the downs, particularly at the iron age hill fort,
Liddington Castle Liddington Castle, locally called Liddington Camp, is a late Bronze Age and early Iron Age univallate hillfort in the English county of Wiltshire, and a scheduled monument. Description The site is on a commanding high point close to the Rid ...
, where he would lie on the grass, ecstatically feeling and seeking a connection with the natural world. In September 1867 and July 1868 he was very ill. In retrospect the illnesses were clearly the first symptoms of the tuberculosis that would kill him. He emerged from them weakened and very thin – "My legs are as thin as a grasshopper's", he wrote to his aunt. Illness also prompted some reconsideration of his own character: he was going to be "not swell but stylish" in future, since people set so much store by appearance. He was now actively pursuing a career as a writer, writing a history of the Goddards, a local family, and ''Reporting, Editing, and Authorship: Practical Hints for Beginners in Literature'' (1873), in which he shared the fruits of his brief experience as a local reporter. Meanwhile the novels he was writing could not find a publisher. What national attention he attracted was instead from a series of letters to ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'' on the Wiltshire agricultural labourer, published in November 1872. The letters, like his other writings from this period, reflect the Conservative outlook of his upbringing. In 1874, the year of his first published novel, ''The Scarlet Shawl'', he married Jessie Baden (1853–1926), the daughter of a nearby farmer. After living for a few months at Coate Farm, the couple moved to a house in Swindon in 1875 (its current address is 93 Victoria Road); and their first child, Richard Harold Jefferies, was born there on 3 May.


First successes


Essays

While in Swindon, Jefferies had found it difficult to seek publication or employment with London publishers; and early in 1877, with Jessie and their baby son Harold, he moved to a house at what is now 296 Ewell Road,
Tolworth Tolworth is a suburban area in the Surbiton district, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, Greater London. It is southwest of Charing Cross. Neighbouring places include Long Ditton, New Malden, Kingston, Surbiton, Berrylands, Hinchley Wood, ...
, near
Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the historic county of Surrey and since 1965 it ha ...
. (There is a wooden plaque commemorating this by the entrance to Surbiton Library.) The area was then at the limits of London's growth. Jefferies spent much time wandering through the nearby countryside; and these walks would later provide the material for ''Nature Near London'' (1883). The Surbiton years were momentous. The couple's next child, a daughter called Jessie after her mother (but known by her second name, Phyllis), was born (on 6 December 1880), and Jefferies began to make his name at last. His new surroundings defined him, both to himself and others, as a country writer. Articles drawing on Jefferies's Wiltshire experiences found a ready market in ''
The Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed in ...
''. First came a series of essays based on his friendship with the keeper of the Burderop estate, near Coate, ''The Gamekeeper at Home'', collected as a book in 1878. The book was well received and Jefferies was compared with the great English nature writer,
Gilbert White Gilbert White FRS (18 July 1720 – 26 June 1793) was a " parson-naturalist", a pioneering English naturalist, ecologist, and ornithologist. He is best known for his ''Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne''. Life White was born on ...
. Three more collections followed the same pattern of publication in ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' and then in book form: ''Wild Life in a Southern County'' and ''The Amateur Poacher'' (both 1879), and ''Round About a Great Estate'' (1880). Another collection, ''Hodge and his Masters'' (1880), brought together articles first published in the ''Standard''. In the few years that Jefferies took to write these essays, his literary skill developed rapidly: ''The Amateur Poacher'' in particular is regarded as a major advance on the earlier works, the first in which he approaches the autobiographical subject matter that is behind his best works. A minor novel, ''Greene Ferne Farm'' (1880), was the first to gain recognition, both from contemporaries and in later scholarship.


The Bevis books

Two books of these years form a sequence. ''Wood Magic: A Fable'' (1881) introduces his child-hero, Bevis, a small child on a farm near a small lake, called the "Longpond", clearly Coate Farm and Coate Reservoir. Bevis's exploration of the garden and neighbouring fields brings him into contact with the country's birds and animals, who can speak to him, as can even inanimate parts of nature, such as the stream and the wind. Part of the book is a depiction of a small child's interaction with the natural world, but much is a cynical
animal fable An animal tale or beast fable generally consists of a short story or poem in which animals talk. They may exhibit other anthropomorphic qualities as well, such as living in a human-like society. It is a traditional form of allegorical writing. An ...
of a revolt against the magpie Kapchack, the local tyrant. In ''Bevis'' (1882), the boy is older, and the fantasy element, by which animals can talk, is quite absent. Rather, we have realistically related adventures of Bevis and his friend Mark, fighting a mock battle with other local children, rigging a boat and sailing to an island on the lake (which they call "The New Sea"), fishing and even shooting with a homemade gun.


Illness and death


Onset

In December 1881, Jefferies began to suffer from his until then undiagnosed tuberculosis, with an
anal fistula Anal fistula is a chronic abnormal communication between the epithelialised surface of the anal canal and usually the perianal skin. An anal fistula can be described as a narrow tunnel with its internal opening in the anal canal and its externa ...
. After a series of painful operations, he moved to West
Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
to convalesce. About this time he wrote his extraordinary autobiography, ''
The Story of My Heart ''The Story of My Heart'' is a book first published in 1883 by English nature writer, essayist, and journalist Richard Jefferies. The book has been described as a "spiritual autobiography" where Jefferies idealises the English countryside as a s ...
'' (1883). He had been planning this work for seventeen years and, in his words, it was "absolutely and unflinchingly true". It was not an autobiography of the events of his life, but an outpouring of his deepest thoughts and feelings. Articles about the Surbiton area were reprinted in the popular ''Nature Near London'' (1883), although the last chapters of the book refer to
Beachy Head Beachy Head is a chalk headland in East Sussex, England. It is situated close to Eastbourne, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. Beachy Head is located within the administrative area of Eastbourne Borough Council which owns the land, formi ...
,
Ditchling Beacon Ditchling Beacon is the highest point in East Sussex, England, with an elevation of . It is south of Ditchling and to the north-east of Brighton. It is a large chalk hill with a particularly steep northern face, covered with open grassland a ...
and other
Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...
landmarks. In Brighton, his third child, Richard Oliver Launcelot Jefferies, was born on 18 July 1883. But his life was to be a short one. Jefferies moved to
Eltham Eltham ( ) is a district of southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The three wards o ...
, then in
Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, now a part of
Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
, in June 1884, and here, early in 1885, the child died suddenly of
meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion or ...
. Jefferies was so affected that he could not attend the funeral.


''After London''

Jefferies's next novel, ''After London'' (1885), can be seen as an early example of "
post-apocalyptic fiction Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astro ...
": after some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature, and the few survivors to a quasi-medieval way of life. The book has two parts. The first, "The Relapse into Barbarism", is the account by some later historian of the fall of civilisation and its consequences, with a loving description of nature reclaiming England: fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, the hated London reverting to lake and poisonous swampland. The second part, "Wild England", is largely a straightforward adventure set many years later in the wild landscape and society (here too Jefferies was setting an example for the genre); but the opening section, despite some improbabilities, has been much admired for its rigour and compelling narrative. Critics dissatisfied with the second part often make an exception of chapters 22–24, which go beyond recreation of a medieval world to give a disturbing and surreal description of the site of the fallen city. Jefferies's interest in catastrophes predates ''After London'': two short unpublished pieces from the 1870s describe social collapse after London is paralysed by freak winter conditions. In the better achieved of these, the narrator is a future historian piecing the story together from surviving accounts. The fantasy of the second part also has a predecessor in a short work, ''The Rise of Maximin, Emperor of the Occident'', serialised in ''
The New Monthly Magazine ''The New Monthly Magazine'' was a British monthly magazine published from 1814 to 1884. It was founded by Henry Colburn and published by him through to 1845. History Colburn and Frederic Shoberl established ''The New Monthly Magazine and Univ ...
'' in 1876, in this case an adventure set in a remote and imaginary past. Although the society that Jefferies depicts after the fall of London is an unpleasant one, with oppressive petty tyrants at war with each other, and insecurity and injustice for the poor, it still served as an inspiration for
William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He w ...
's utopian ''
News from Nowhere ''News from Nowhere'' (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the ''Commonweal'' journal begin ...
'' (1890). In a letter of 1885, he writes of his reaction to ''After London'': "absurd hopes curled around my heart as I read it." ''After London'' also influenced M.P. Shiel's post-apocalyptic novel, ''
The Purple Cloud ''The Purple Cloud'' is an apocalyptic "last man" novel by the British writer M. P. Shiel. It was published in 1901. H. G. Wells lauded ''The Purple Cloud'' as "brilliant" and H. P. Lovecraft later praised the novel as exemplary weird fictio ...
''.


Final years

After Eltham, Jefferies lived briefly in various parts of Sussex, first at
Rotherfield Rotherfield is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. It is one of the largest parishes in East Sussex. There are three villages in the parish: Rotherfield, Mark Cross and Eridge. The River Rother, which ...
, then in a house on
Crowborough Crowborough is a town and civil parish in East Sussex, England, in the Weald at the edge of Ashdown Forest in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 7 miles (11 km) south-west of Royal Tunbridge Wells and 33 miles ( ...
Hill. In Crowborough Jefferies completed his most ambitious and most unusual novel, ''Amaryllis at the Fair'' (1887). Closely based on his own family at Coate, it describes a farm and a family imperceptibly approaching disaster. There is little narrative development; instead significant or typical moments are presented in short scenes or even tableaux. Illness and resulting lower productivity had impoverished Jefferies; and the editor Charles Longman suggested an application to the
Royal Literary Fund The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a benevolent fund that gives assistance to published British writers in financial difficulties. Founded in 1790, and granted a royal charter in 1818, the Fund has helped an extensive roll of authors through its long ...
. At first Jefferies resisted the suggestion, regarding aid from aristocratic patrons not involved in literary work as humiliating: "Patrons of literature! was there ever such a disgrace in the nineteenth century? Patrons of literature! The thing is simply abominable!" Longman finally succeeded in convincing Jefferies that the fund was "assisted by everybody who had made any success in literature". An application was accepted and the committee voted a grant of one hundred pounds. Another fund arranged by Longman enabled Jefferies to move nearer to the sea, at Goring, a suburb of
Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...
. There, on 14 August 1887, he died of tuberculosis and exhaustion. He is buried in Broadwater and Worthing Cemetery in Worthing. After his death a number of posthumous collections were made of his writings previously published in newspapers and magazines, beginning with ''Field and Hedgerow'' (1889), edited by his widow. New collections have appeared since then, but even now not all his writings have been gathered and reprinted.


Influence and reputation

Early works included three by Henry Stephens Salt: *''Richard Jefferies: A Study'' (1894) *''Richard Jefferies: His Life and His Ideas'' (1905) *''The Faith of Richard Jefferies'' (1906) J. S. Fletcher wrote several novels about English rural life modelled on Jefferies' work, beginning with ''The Wonderful Wapentake'' (1894). Jefferies's works inspired
Henry Williamson Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history and ruralism. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 for his book ''Tarka ...
to take up writing; Williamson edited a collection of Jefferies's writings with a title that indicates the great regard that he held for Jefferies: *''Richard Jefferies : Selections of his Work with details of his Life and Circumstances, his Death and Immortality'' (1947) Other writers who admired Jefferies included
David Garnett David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981) was an English writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life. Early ...
, Edward Thomas (who wrote his biography), Leslie Paul,
Ethel Mannin Ethel Edith Mannin (6 October 1900 – 5 December 1984) was a popular British novelist and travel writer, political activist and socialist. She was born in London. Life and career Mannin's father, Robert Mannin (d. 1948) was a member of the S ...
,
John Fowles John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. Aft ...
,
Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi- autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical re ...
,
Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contrib ...
,
Jeff VanderMeer Jeff VanderMeer (born July 7, 1968) is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy. The t ...
and
Ludovic Kennedy Sir Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy (3 November 191918 October 2009) was a Scottish journalist, broadcaster, humanist and author best known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans an ...
. Canadian poet John Newlove published "Inscription to Richard Jefferies on a Sarsen at Barbury" in ''The Tasmanian Devil & Other Poems''. The Richard Jefferies Bird Sanctuary in
Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the historic county of Surrey and since 1965 it ha ...
commemorates him. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
TV series
Antiques Road Trip ''Antiques Road Trip'' (also known as ''Celebrity Antiques Road Trip'') is a BBC television series produced by STV Studios. It was first shown on BBC Two from 2010 to 2012, and has been shown on BBC One since 2013. This show is not to be conf ...
featured the Richard Jefferies Museum in 2022 when antiques expert James Braxton met with the museum's director Mike Pringle to tell the authors story. Jefferies' novel ''After London'' was a source of inspiration for the band
Bird in the Belly Bird in the Belly are a Brighton-based folk music collective, consisting of alt-folk musician Jinnwoo (Ben Webb), folk duo Hickory Signals (Laura Ward and Adam Ronchetti), and producer and multi-instrumentalist Tom Pryor. History In August ...
's 2022 concept album ''After the City''. The band adapted extracts from the novel, together with
broadside ballad A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between t ...
s, plague poetry and
Lancashire Cotton Famine The Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as the Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic (1861–65), was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by overproduction in a time of contracting world markets. It coincided wi ...
poetry to create a back story to the events that Jefferies details in his novel.


Published books by Jefferies

The following list is necessarily selective. Much of Jefferies's writing was not published in book form in his lifetime. Many works surviving in manuscript or only published in journals have been published piecemeal by various editors since his death. Since his contributions to journals were generally anonymous, identification is often a problem. For a fuller survey, see Miller and Matthews (1993).


Books published in Jefferies's lifetime

*''The Scarlet Shawl'' (London:
Tinsley Brothers William Tinsley (13 July 1831 – 1 May 1902) was a British publisher. The son of a gamekeeper, he had little formal education; but together with his brother Edward (1835–1865) he founded the firm of Tinsley Brothers, which published many of t ...
, 1874) *''Restless Human Hearts'' (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1875) *''World's End'' (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1877) *''The Gamekeeper at Home'' (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1878) (reissued by
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...
, 2009; ) *''Wild Life in a Southern County'' (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1879) *''The Amateur Poacher'' (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1879) (reissued by
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...
, 2009; ) *''Greene Ferne Farm'' (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880) *''Hodge and His Masters'' (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880) *''Round About a Great Estate'' (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880) *''Wood Magic'' (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1881) *''Bevis: the Story of a Boy'' (London:
Sampson Low Sampson Low (18 November 1797 – 16 April 1886) was a bookseller and publisher in London in the 19th century. Early years Born in London in 1797, he was the son of Sampson Low, printer and publisher, of Berwick Street, Soho. He served a short ...
, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1882) *''Nature Near London'' (London:
Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...
, 1883) *''
The Story of My Heart ''The Story of My Heart'' is a book first published in 1883 by English nature writer, essayist, and journalist Richard Jefferies. The book has been described as a "spiritual autobiography" where Jefferies idealises the English countryside as a s ...
: An Autobiography'' (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1883) *''Red Deer'' (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1884) *''The Life of the Fields'' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1884) *''The Dewy Morn'' (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1884) *''After London; Or, Wild England'' (London: Cassell & Company, Ltd., 1885) *''The Open Air'' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1885) *''Amaryllis at the Fair'' (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1887)


Posthumous publications

Only the first of these (produced by his widow) was planned by Jefferies. *''Field and Hedgerow; Being the Last Essays of Richard Jefferies'' (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1889) *''The Toilers in the Field'' (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1892) *''The Early Fiction of Richard Jefferies'', ed. G. Toplis (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co Ltd., 1896), somewhat bowdlerisedMiller and Matthews (1993), 569. *''Jefferies' Land: A History of Swindon and its Environs'', ed. G. Toplis (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co Ltd., 1896) *''The Hills and the Vale'', collected and introduced by E. Thomas (London:
Duckworth & Co Duckworth may refer to: * Duckworth (surname), people with the surname ''Duckworth'' * Duckworth (''DuckTales''), fictional butler from the television series ''DuckTales'' * Duckworth Books, a British publishing house * , a frigate * Duckworth ...
, 1909) *''Eye of the Beholder: an illustrated anthology'' (Southampton: Ashford Press Pub., 1987) * "The Rise of Maximin: Emperor of the Orient", first published in serial form in 'The New Monthly Magazine' (1876–7), (Oxfordshire: Petton Books, 2012). . * "The Farmer's World: Richard Jefferies' Agricultural Journalism in the late 1870s". A collection of Jefferies's articles published in the Livestock Journal. Published by Petton Books, 2016, * "Ben Tubbs Adventures" (Norfolk: Petton Books, 2016). Jefferies's earliest work of fiction.


Secondary literature

* Arkell, Reginald, ''Richard Jefferies and His Countryside'', Herbert Jenkins, 1946. * Banerjee, Jacqueline, ''Literary Surrey'', John Owen Smith (2005). pp. 55–56, 64–72. *
Walter Besant Sir Walter Besant (14 August 1836 – 9 June 1901) was an English novelist and historian. William Henry Besant was his brother, and another brother, Frank, was the husband of Annie Besant. Early life and education The son of wine merchant Willi ...
, ''The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies'' (London: Chatto and Windus, 1888, fourth impression 1905). *
John Fowles John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. Aft ...
, "Introduction", in R. Jefferies, ''After London'' (Oxford: OUP, 1980), vii–xxi. * W. J. Keith, ''Richard Jefferies, A Critical Study'' (London: University of Toronto Press, 1965). *
Q. D. Leavis Queenie Dorothy Leavis (née Roth, 7 December 1906 – 17 March 1981) was an English literary critic and essayist.Mary Grover, "Leavis, Q.D." in Faye Hammill, Esme Miskimmin, Ashlie Sponenberg (eds.) ''An Encyclopedia of British Women's Writing 19 ...
, ''Lives and works of Richard Jefferies'', '' Scrutiny'' 6 (1938) 435–46, reprinted in ''Collected Essays'' Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 254–64. * S. J. Looker and C. Porteous, ''Richard Jefferies, Man of the Fields'' (London: John Baker, 1965). * H. Matthews and P. Treitel, ''The Forward Life of Richard Jefferies'' (Oxford: Petton Books, 1994). * H. Matthews and P. Treitel, ''Richard Jefferies: An Index'' (Longcot: Petton Books, 2008). * H. Matthews and R. Welshman, "Richard Jefferies: An Anthology" (Longcot: Petton Books, 2010). * G. Miller and H. Matthews, ''Richard Jefferies, A bibliographical study'' (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1993). * B. Morris, ''Richard Jefferies and the Ecological Vision'' (Oxford: Trafford Publishing, 2006). *Mike Pringle, ''Wild Life, A Unique Vision of Our World'' (with a foreword by
Monty Don Montagu Denis Wyatt Don (born George Montagu Don; 8 July 1955) is a British horticulturist, broadcaster, and writer who is best known as the lead presenter of the BBC gardening television series '' Gardeners' World''. Born in Germany and rais ...
, Victorian contextual information by Liz Howell and an afterword by Graeme Maxton), Swindon: Richard Jefferies Museum Trust, 2021). * A. Rossabi, ''(John) Richard Jefferies (1848–1887)'', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford: OUP, 2004). * A. Rossabi, ''A Peculiarly English Genius, or a Wiltshire Taoist: A Biography of Richard Jefferies, The Early Years, 1848–1867'' (Foulsham, Norfolk UK: Petton Books, 2017). * A. Rossabi, ''A Peculiarly English Genius, or a Wiltshire Taoist: A Biography of Richard Jefferies, The Years of Struggle, 1867–1876'' (Foulsham, Norfolk UK: Petton Books, 2020). * A. Rossabi, ''Richard Jefferies: a Miscellany'' (Cambridge: Galileo Books, 2019). * A. Smith, ''The Interpreter: a biography of Richard Jefferies'' (Swindon: Blue Gate Books, 2008). . * B. Taylor, ''Richard Jefferies'' (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982) * E. Thomas, ''Richard Jefferies: His Life and Work'' (London: Hutchinson, 1909). * K. Tryon, ''Adventures in the Vale of the White Horse: Jefferies Land'' (Longcot: Petton Books, 2010). * H. Sheehan, Jill Carter: ''The Cunning Spider'' (Swindon: BlueGate Books, 2007).


Footnotes


External links


Richard Jefferies Society

The Old House at Coate: Jefferies Museum Development Project
* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferies, Richard 1848 births 1887 deaths 19th-century British journalists 19th-century English people British male journalists English children's writers English nature writers English science fiction writers Environmental fiction writers Environmental journalists Pantheists People from Swindon Philosophy of mind literature Victorian novelists Victorian poets People from Rotherfield People from Crowborough People from Goring-by-Sea