The story of my heart
By: by Richard Jefferies, as rediscovered by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams ; afterword by Scott Slovic
Contributors: Williams, Brooke (Conservationist), editor; Williams, Terry Tempest, editor
Edition: First Torry House Press edition.
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
ISBN-13: 9781937226411
Subjects: Natural history; Country life; Naturalists; Criticism and interpretation; Biography; English Authors
Description: While browsing a Stonington, Maine, bookstore, Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams discovered a rare copy of an exquisite autobiography by nineteenth-century British nature writer Richard Jefferies, who develops his understanding of a "soul-life" while wandering the wild countryside of Wiltshire, England. Brooke and Terry, like John Fowles, Henry Miller, and Rachel Carson before, were inspired by the prescient words of this visionary writer, who describes ineffable feelings of being at one with nature. In an introduction and essays set alongside Jefferies' writing, the Williams share their personal pilgrimage to Wiltshire to understand this man of "cosmic consciousness" and how their exploration of Jefferies deepened their own relationship while illuminating dilemmas of modernity, the intrinsic need for wildness, and what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.
Notes: Text by Jeffries originally published: London, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1883. With additional writings by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams.