(John) Richard Jefferies (1848–1887) was very well known for his evocative and honest writing on rural life, agriculture and natural history in the second half of the 19th century. His work is not so widely known and appreciated now, but a modern appraisal of his output reveals him to be very much a pioneer in many aspects of our later ecological approach to nature.
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the publication of the first posthumous collection of Richard Jefferies’ essays, published by his widow in 1889 under the title Field and Hedgerow. It contains 29 essays, none of them printed in book form before, which cover a broad range of topics.