Title: The story of my heart
First published: 1883
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.
Subjects: Autobiography, Biography, Biography & Autobiography, Country life, English Authors, Natural history, Naturalists, New Age, Nonfiction, Authors, biography, Journalists, biography, Jefferies, richard, 1848-1887, Authors, english, Natural history, great britain, Country life, great britain, Criticism and interpretation, Nature, Spirituality, Great britain, biography, Spiritual life, Religious biography, Religious aspects
Places: England, Great Britain
People: Richard Jeffries (1848-1887), Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)
Time periods: 19th century