The country diaries

by Alan F. Taylor

"The unique beauty of the British countryside has been celebrated down the ages through music, poetry, and art. It has also been celebrated in countless private diaries. This delightful treasury gathers together the very finest - from Rev Gilbert White's journal of life at his famous home in Selborne, to Beatrix Potter's holiday diaries from Perthshire. Elsewhere, the thoughts of Dorothy Wordsworth and John Fowles rub shoulders with the words of Alan Clark and Queen Victoria. Together these private records paint a rich and surprising picture of a landscape and a way of life we think we know...