''The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District'' is an autobiographical book by James Rebanks, a sheep farmer from

Matterdale Matterdale is a civil parish in the Lake District of Cumbria, England. It lies on the northern shore of Ullswater. The parish includes the settlements of Dockray, Matterdale End, Ulcat row, Watermillock and Wreay. It had a population of 526 ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

, England, published by

Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fictio ...

in 2015. Rebanks writes that he was moved and inspired by another book with almost the same title, ''A Shepherd's Life'' by

W.H. Hudson William Henry Hudson (4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922) – known in Argentina as Guillermo Enrique Hudson – was an English Argentines, Anglo-Argentine author, natural history, naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist. Life Hudson was the ...

, who wrote about sheep-farming in

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 ...

in the early years of the 20th century. Rebanks describes the traditional way of life of shepherds on the Cumbrian

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle o ...

s and vales, and his determination to continue to farm where generations of his forebears had done. After an unsuccessful school education, he studied for

A levels The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational aut ...

in evening classes and graduated from

Magdalen College Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the st ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, with a

double first The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

in history before returning to farming.

Other editions

The book appeared in the United States as ''The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape'' (Flatiron books, ). There is also a large print edition, with the same title, by Thorndike Press . A German translation ''Mein Leben als Schäfer'' was published in 2016 (Bertelsmann:

Critical reception

Rebanks' book was well-received and was the

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

Book of the Week ''Book of the Week'' is a BBC Radio 4 series that is broadcast daily on week days. Each week, extracts from the selected book, usually a non-fiction work, are read over five episodes; each fifteen-minute episode is broadcast in the morning (9:45a ...

'' in April 2015.

Theatrical adaptation

The book was adapted for the stage by Chris Monks and produced at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, in March 2016. The theatrical production included life-sized puppet sheepdogs and sheep, with James being played by Kieran Hill. ''Includes photograph of puppet sheep''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shepherd's Life 2015 non-fiction books British memoirs Agriculture books Nature books Books about the Lake District Allen Lane (imprint) books Memoirs adapted for other media Books adapted into plays