The Gamekeeper at Home - Sketches of Natural History and Rural Life

Publisher Marketing: Richard Jefferies is famous for his tales of country life. The Gamekeeper At Home is probably his best known work, truly reflecting those by-gone days when the Gamekeeper was a vital part of rural activities. He discusses the man himself and how he fits into the community and examines his relations with his family. His area of activity is covered - the fields, the woods, the meadows and the ponds and streams. The world around him needs protection from the predators that kill the game and disturb the balance of nature. There is contact with his dogs and other animals such as rabbits and deer as well as the traditional enemies such as the fox. All parts are brought together so the reader can sense the activity of the countryside and the efforts to keep its integral parts operating in harmony. This understanding is enhanced by the masterly drawings by Charles Whymper. List of Chapters: I. THE MAN HIMSELF - HIS HOUSE, AND TOOLS II. HIS FAMILY AND CASTE III. IN THE FIELDS IV. HIS DOMINIONS: - THE WOODS - MEADOWS - AND WATER V. SOME OF HIS SUBJECTS: DOGS, RABBITS, MICE AND SUCH SMALL DEER VI. HIS ENEMIES BIRDS AND BEAASTS OF PREY - TRESPASSERS VII. PROFESSIONAL POACHERS - THE ART OF WIRING GAME VIII. THE FIELD DETECTIVE - FISH POACHING IX. GUERILLA WARFARE - GUN ACCIDENTS - BLACK SHEEP Contributor Bio:  Jefferies, Richard John Richard Jefferies (6 November 1848 - 14 August 1887) was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small Wiltshire farm had a great influence on him and provides the background to all his major works of fiction. For all that, these show a remarkable diversity, including Bevis (1882), a classic children's book, and After London (1885), an early work of science fiction. For much of his adult life, he suffered from tuberculosis, and his struggles with the illness and with poverty also play a role in his writing. Jefferies valued and cultivated an intensity of feeling in his experience of the world around him, a cultivation that he describes in detail in The Story of My Heart (1883). This work, an introspective depiction of his thoughts and feelings on the world, gained him the reputation of a nature mystic at the time. But it is his success in conveying his awareness of nature and people within it, both in his fiction and in essay collections such as The Amateur Poacher (1879) and Round About a Great Estate (1880), that has drawn most admirers. Walter Besant wrote of his reaction on first reading Jefferies: "Why, we must have been blind all our lives; here were the most wonderful things possible going on under our very noses, but we saw them not."