A Year with Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer

'You are more able to see with your own Eyes than any Man I know'

In 1781, Gilbert White was a country curate, living in the Hampshire village he had known all his life. Fascinated by the fauna, flora and people around him, he kept journals for many years, and was now halfway to completing his path-breaking Natural History of Selbourne. No one had written like this before, with such close observation, humour, and sympathy: his spellbinding book has remained in print, treasured by generations of readers, since 1789.

Jenny Uglow illuminates this quirky, warm-hearted man, 'the father of ecology', by following a single year in his Naturalist's Journal. As his diary jumps from topic to topic, she follows Gilbert White from frost to summer drought, from the migration of birds to the sex lives of snails and the coming of harvest. Fresh, alive and original, A Year with Gilbert White invites us to see the natural world anew, with astonishment and wonder.