Nature Classics Library
2 total works
H.E. Bates's evocation of a year in the life of an English woodland has been reprinted to make a suitable gift for gardeners and nature lovers. Bates has an eye for every detail describing the sights and sounds of the countryside and the endless variety of plants and animals as each emerges in turn with the changing seasons. The text is complemented by Agnes Miller Parker's wood engravings, from full-page evocations of a fox stalking its prey to tail pieces showing a bunch of catkins or an owl against the night sky. H.E. Bates is the author of "The Darling Buds of May". Agnes Miller Parker is the illustrator of "Down the River" and "The House and the Apricot".
Rivers are great workings of nature, time and geology. They have long been at the very centre of human culture, sustaining us with water, food, power and stories. Our thoughts flow like a river. A river's journey, from source to sea, is a metaphor for life. H.E. Bates's own journey began on the banks and in the waters of two contrasting Midland rivers. The River Nene's jumbled course and character, with its towpaths and locks and bridges, speaks of human industry on its journey to The Wash. The River Ouse, in contrast, with its wide meanders brimmed with reeds and smoky willows, rich in wildlife and wild flowers, is an uplifting, ephemeral water, a river of summer memories and flag irises, the blue pulse of kingfishers and pike lurking in weed-shadows. Peopled by his relatives and neighbours, both the Nene and the Ouse, however different, filled H.E. Bates's imagination with the wonderful stories and characters that make his writing so enjoyable.