THE HILLS AND THE VALE. By Richard Jefferies. With an introduction by Edward Thomas.

# (1909) 1911 Reader's Library edition. Small 8vo (127 x 194mm). Ppxxxiii,312. Introductory essay by Edward Thomas. Not illustrated. Blind-stamped publishe's logo to blue cloth, gilt titles in gilt ruled borders to spine.

# This book was first published posthumously, and is made up of three essays unpublished in the author's lifetime and fifteen first published in a variety of magazines and newspapers of the day. Country life, shooting, the lot of the labourer, the history of Swindon (the real one, before the nests of roundabouts and the factories), rural politics and a lot more besides. This Oxford paperback edition is a filmset facsimile of the first edition of 1909. Contents include: Choosing a gun; Skating; Marlborough Forest; Village churches; Birds of spring; The spring of the year; Vignettes from nature; A king of acres; The story of Swindon; Unequal agriculture; Village organization; The idle earth; After the county franchise; The Wiltshire labourer; On the downs; The sun and the brook; Nature and eternity; The dawn.