6 November 2017 marks almost
170 years since the day that Richard Jefferies was born on the
family farm at Coate (now part of Swindon). The Richard Jefferies Society [1] is
celebrating the occasion with a public meeting [2] to be held
at Liddington Village Hall on Saturday 4
November starting at 2.30pm and the publication of the first volume of a new
biography [3] of Richard Jefferies that covers his early years
living in the Coate area – a time that inspired his writing
and which provided his first job as a reporter on the local
paper.
RICHARD FORTEY WINS 2016 LITERARY PRIZE
 |
| From the left: Angus Maclennan, John Price and Richard Fortey |
The Richard Jefferies Society and
The White Horse Bookshop Writer's Prize has been awarded to British
palaeontologist, natural historian, writer and broadcaster Richard Fortey for The Wood for the Trees (William Collins).
From a short list of five, the panel judged that the book best met the
criterion of reflecting themes or topics broadly
consistent with Jefferies’ writing.
Connections and Inspirations: the Influence of Richard Jefferies on Writers and Poets
RICHARD JEFFERIES SOCIETY
STUDY DAY
SATURDAY
24 June 2017
Connections and
Inspirations: the Influence of Richard Jefferies on Writers and Poets
Ben Tubbs Adventures published for the first time
Ben Tubbs
Adventures is Richard Jefferies’ earliest extant work of any
length, probably written in his late teens. It is a quest novel of voyage
and adventure, and his first essay in a genre to which he was naturally drawn.
It was probably influenced by the greatest quest story of them all, Homer’s Odyssey, one of Jefferies’ favourite books as a boy.
It is likely
that Jefferies wrote it for his personal amusement and the entertainment of
family and friends. For students of Jefferies, the novel is of interest.
The humour
and Ben’s pranks in the early chapters of the book are juvenile and immature
but fitting for a boy’s story. The descriptions of the slaves on the
slave-ships are racist in the extreme and painful to read. However the later
chapters, that treat Ben’s adventures in America, show some sparks of
Jefferies’ real writing talent. He describes the prairies with great
sensitivity.
The book is
published for the first time (April 2016), in paperback (200pp)and is available
through the Richard Jefferies Society at a cost of £8 plus postage (rrp £12).
Go to:
http://richardjefferiessociety.org. There is an
excellent introduction by Andrew Rossabi and this is worth reading in its own
right.
Ben Tubbs Adventures (Petton Books: Norfolk, 2016). ISBN:
9780956375179.
John Lister-Kaye awarded inaugural Richard Jefferies Society Writers' Prize
John Lister-Kaye awarded
inaugural Richard Jefferies Society Writers' Prize
Sir
John Lister-Kaye has been awarded the inaugural Writers’ Prize by the Richard
Jefferies Society for Gods of the Morning,
his critically acclaimed celebration of a natural year through the lives of
British birds. His ninth book, it will be released in paperback this week.
The
Richard Jefferies Society was founded to commemorate Richard Jefferies, a
Victorian writer best known for his groundbreaking work on natural history,
rural life and agriculture. The Society’s Writers’ Prize, founded in memory of John
Webb – lifelong lover of Jefferies’ writing, commenced in 2015, with the prize
of £500 awarded for any length or format of writing on themes or topics broadly
consistent with Jefferies’ writing. Also shortlisted for the prize in 2015 were
Common Ground by Rob Cowen and The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy.
Gods of the Morning follows a year through the turning of the
seasons, exploring the habits of the Highland animals, and in particular the
birds – Lister-Kaye’s gods of the morning, for whom he has nourished a lifelong
passion. It is an affectionate and wise celebration of the British landscape
and the birds that come and go through the year, a lyrical reminder of the
relationship we have lost with the seasons and a call to look afresh at the
natural world around us.
Published
in hardback last year, it has received praise from critics and writers across
the industry including Helen MacDonald, Mark Cocker, Patrick Barkham and Chris
Packham, widespread glowing reviews, and was selected as the Waterstones
Scottish Book of the Month.
Lister-Kaye
commented: ‘I am delighted to receive this award, particularly since I have
been an enthusiast for Richard Jefferies’ nature writing for many years. His contribution to the genre and to the
general appreciation of our wildlife and countryside is immense, so I am very
proud to be the inaugural winner of this important prize.’
John Price, the Society’s Chairman, added: ‘Gods
of the Morning is a book by a man who is as familiar with his local Scottish
wildlife and countryside as Richard Jefferies had been with his Wiltshire local
environment; and both authors also had the ability to describe some of the
local human population in deft terms. An outstanding first winner of the
Richard Jefferies Society Writers' Prize, Lister-Kaye is able to convey the
joy of nature in an uncomplicated and eloquent fashion.’
Sir
John Lister-Kaye is one of Britain's best-known naturalists and conservationists.
He is the author of nine books on wildlife and the environment, including At
the Water's Edge, and has lectured all over the world. He has served
prominently in the RSPB, the Nature Conservancy Council, Scottish Natural
Heritage and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. In 2003 he was awarded an OBE for
services to nature conservation. He lives with his wife and family among the
mountains of the Scottish Highlands, where he runs the world-famous Aigas Field
Centre.
 |
| Sir John Lister-Kaye (left), John Price (right) - March 2016 |
***
Gods of the Morning, by John Lister-Kaye, is
published by Canongate.
Hardback £14.99 / Paperback
£9.99 / Ebook £12.99
NEW PUBLICATION - AVAILABLE NOW
The Farmer’s World (Petton Books, Feb. 2016) is now available. The
book comprises all the articles (nearly 90) by Jefferies published in The Live Stock Journal and Fancier's Gazette in the late 1870s, along with a masterly introduction
by Professor Eric Jones.
The articles are forthright, almost
campaigning, often urging readers to reconsider their conservative ways, to be
innovative, to seek commercial opportunities and to tackle waste. ‘Middlemen’
were regularly disparaged, traditional methods of distribution questioned and
imaginative schemes suggested to bring producer and consumer closer together. Jefferies also displayed a
surprising ability in figures and a good grasp of mechanical engineering,
explaining with clarity the workings of newly invented farming machinery. The
essays collected here demonstrate Jefferies’ expertise in trade-paper
journalism and contrast sharply with his later, lyrical work. He was a
modernist of his time, and declares: ‘agriculture has become far too wide for
the brain of any one man’.
The soft-back book can be purchased from the Richard Jefferies Society for £10 plus postage.
The Presence of the Past: Richard Jefferies, the Middle Ridgeway and landscape change
Richard Jefferies
Society Birthday
Lecture
Saturday 25 October
2014 -
2.30-4.40pmSubject:
The Presence of the
Past: Richard Jefferies,
the Middle Ridgeway and landscape change
Speaker: Prof. Patrick Dillon
Speaker: Prof. Patrick Dillon
Venue:
Liddington Village Hall, Church Road, Liddington, SN4 0HB
Admittance:
Free
Walking the Icknield Way and the Ridgeway by Hugh Thomson
Harmony by Julian Anderson
The Richard
Jefferies Society has written to a young British composer congratulating him on
his opening composition for the first night of the BBC Proms (12th July).
The new work
entitled Harmony, for choir and orchestra, by Julian Anderson lasted 5
minutes, was commissioned by the BBC and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra
and Chorus. The piece was inspired by Richard Jefferies’ autobiography The
Story of My Heart and words taken from it included:
The clock may make time for itself; there is none for me...The shadow goes on upon the dial, the index moves round upon the clock, and what is the difference? None whatever. If the clock had never been set going, what would have been the difference?
Richard Jefferies Society Birthday Lecture 3rd November
Richard Jefferies was born on 6th November 1848. Each year the Richard Jefferies Society celebrate his birth with a Lecture as part of the Annual General Meeting. This year Rebecca Welshman from the University of Exeter will speak on the subject of "Imagining Archaeology: nature and landscape in the work of Richard Jefferies."
The details are as follows:
The details are as follows:
Memorial event 16th March 2012 Eltham Churchyard
Richard Jefferies Festival
Please go here to read more about the Richard Jefferies Festival taking place in Swindon from 24-28th August 2011.
You can download a copy of the full programme .
All events are free to attend. The Richard Jefferies Museum backs onto Coate Water (not as indicated on the flyer that points to the hospital).
You can download a copy of the full programme .
All events are free to attend. The Richard Jefferies Museum backs onto Coate Water (not as indicated on the flyer that points to the hospital).
Richard Jefferies: An Anthology by Hugoe Matthews and Rebecca Welshman.
This new anthology of extracts from Jefferies' writing is selected by Hugoe Matthews and Rebecca Welshman. It aims to highlight his broad, exploratory, and sometimes unpredictable nature in his works. The authors have focused primarily on short quotations which read well independently, and longer passages which demonstrate the context, the quality of the writing, or the flow of Richard Jefferies’ thoughts and observations. Where possible the selections are chronological and show a shift in the emphasis of his work from the 1870s, which focused largely on practical subjects such as farming and rural life, to his later work of increased sensitivity and perception of the natural world. Thereby they have sought to reveal the organic continuity and calm objectivity of Jefferies’ writing, which was present from his teens and addressed a diversity of subjects during an extraordinary era of change, illuminating both the man behind the words, and the times in which he lived.
The Anthology is published in a case-bound, thread-sewn book of 266 pages.
The book was published on 6 November 2010 to celebrate 162 years since the day the author was born.
ISBN: 978-0-9563751-2-4. Price £20 (plus postage: £2.50 UK) It can be ordered via the Richard Jefferies Society.
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