The Henry Williamson Society

A Breath of Country Air (e-book)

This is a collection of over 80 of Henry Williamson's weekly pieces in the Evening Standard, written during 1944/45. The wartime articles are concerned with everyday happenings on his Norfolk farm, his young children (especially Robbie and Rikky, contributors of the Forewords), with other reflections on country life, and most poignantly, the sale of the farm and the end of his farming dream.

£3.50

A Clear Water Stream (e-book)

This is a newly illustrated edition of a much-loved classic of country and angling literature. Set in the first half of the 1930s, it tells of the time when the Williamson family lived at Shallowford in Devon. A two-mile stretch of fishing came with the cottage, on the River Bray, which runs through the deer park close by, and the book tells the story of Williamson's relationship with the river.

£3.50

Atlantic Tales (e-book only)

Henry Williamson's occasional contributions to the prestigious American literary magazine Atlantic Monthly are collected here for the first time: nature sketches, short stories and tales of his later experiences when farming in North Norfolk during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Central to the collection is 'Salar the Salmon', a condensed version of Williamson's best-selling 1935 novel.

£3.50

Capreol: The Story of a Roebuck (e-book only)

Capreol, first published in 1973, is the story of a young buck deer growing up in the chalk hills and ash woods of the South Downs. It traces the drama of Capreol’s birth, life and violent death; his early explorations of the forest; the fears that haunt him; the fever of the rut; his encounters with a rival, One-Switch; and the constant shadowy presence of two men, one who ruthlessly engineers the world of nature, the other who watches and remains in tune with his surroundings.

£3.50

Chronicles of a Norfolk Farmer (e-book only)

Forty-five articles written for the Daily Express between 1937 and 1939 covering HW's last months at Shallowford in Devon, the move to Norfolk, the difficulties first encountered by a total beginner to farming, the disastrous crash in the price of barley in 1938, and the opening months of the Second World War.

£3.50

Days of Wonder (e-book only)

A collection of the articles that appeared in the Daily Express between 1966 and 1971 on subjects ranging from the battles of the Somme and Vimy Ridge to the wreck of the Torrey Canyon in March 1967 and conservation issues.

£3.50

Following Henry Williamson’s Footsteps as he walked the coasts of north and south Devon in 1933 in ON FOOT IN DEVON: With quotations and explanatory commentary (e-book only)

Following Henry Williamson’s Footsteps is an explanatory commentary by Anne Williamson on Williamson's On Foot in Devon, his quirky mock travel guide published in 1933. A detailed knowledge or prior reading of On Foot in Devon is not a prerequisite, for the numerous and sometimes lengthy quotations mean that the commentary can be read and enjoyed independently of the book itself.

£2.50

From a Country Hilltop (e-book only)

This is a collection of 58 essays written between 1958 and 1964, and published in the Co-operative Society’s Home Magazine and, in its Out of Doors series, the Sunday Times. These short essays – personal musings on life, his children, North Devon (now known as ‘Tarka Country’) and other subjects – show HW’s descriptive powers at their best. Nowhere is this shown better than in ‘The Last Summer’, a longer piece that is an evocative personal re-creation of the last golden summer of 1914 before the outbreak of the First World War.

£3.50

Genius of Friendship (e-book only)

Long out of print, this is a memoir by Henry Williamson recounting his friendship with T. E. Lawrence – ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. It was a friendship through correspondence, for the two men actually met only twice. The memoir quotes extensively from Lawrence’s letters to Williamson, which are both literary and personal in content, and make for fascinating reading. They continue up to Lawrence’s death in 1935.

£2.50

Green Fields and Pavements (e-book)

Between 1937 and 1945 Henry Williamson farmed 243 acres of difficult land in North Norfolk, bringing a near-derelict farm to an A grade classification during the years of the Second World War. Throughout those years he was writing newspaper articles, to help finance the farm, and this book is a collection of the articles that he contributed to the Eastern Daily Press between 1941 and 1944.

£3.50

Heart of England (e-book only)

Written originally as a way of paying off unexpectedly high bills during his early years of farming in Norfolk, these beautifully written articles by Henry Williamson, set in both Norfolk and Devon, are counterpointed and given immediacy by the inclusion of the evening’s headlines after each article, depicting the deteriorating international situation as the Second World War begins.

£3.50

Henry Williamson: A brief look at his Life and Writings in North Devon in the 1920s and '30s (e-book)

This short anthology serves as an introduction to Henry Williamson’s early writings about North Devon, which established his reputation as perhaps the foremost British nature writer of the twentieth century. There are extracts from Williamson’s classic novels Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon, as well as from less well-known works, illustrated by contemporary photographs.

£2.50

Indian Summer Notebook (e-book)

A selection of works from a number of scarce sources, including book introductions and contributions to anthologies and magazines; a series of articles in the Evening Standard; and significant essays on Richard Jefferies and Francis Thompson.

£3.50

On the Road (e-book)

The very earliest published writings of HW, which appeared in the Weekly Dispatch between July 1920 and January 1921, during his short-lived Fleet Street career, and which include ‘The Country Week’ (short nature sketches) and ‘On the Road’ (a weekly column on the light cars of the period that offered occasionally somewhat dubious advice!).

£2.50

Pen and Plough: Further Broadcasts (e-book)

A further collection of 21 broadcast talks on the BBC, made between 1936 and 1967. Ten of these were broadcast in the BBC’s Empire Service in 1938/39 and concern the countryside and farming. Four talks are about Williamson’s ongoing struggle to bring life back to the derelict farm in Norfolk that he had bought in 1937, while a later broadcast has the intriguing title ‘On Seeing Marilyn Monroe'.

£3.50

Recreating a Lost World: Henry Williamson and Folkestone 1919-20: fact into fiction (e-book)

Recreating a Lost World explores the real Folkestone of 1919-20 and its personalities, identifying the real-life models for fictional characters in The Dream of Fair Women and showing how Henry Williamson translated place and people, and his own experiences, into this and other novels. It is illustrated with eleven unique photographs from the Henry Williamson Literary Estate’s archive and other illustrations.

£1.50

Spring Days in Devon, and other Broadcasts (e-book)

During the late 1930s Henry Williamson became a broadcaster of some repute on the BBC. This is a collection of twenty-two of his talks, broadcast on the wireless between December 1935 (his very first appearance in front of the microphone) and 1954. Subjects include reminiscences from his own inimitable viewpoint of the West Country and its flora and fauna; the significance in his life of the barn owl; four talks on the lives of English animals (otter, badger, stoat and red deer); and the difficulties encountered on becoming a farmer in Norfolk.

£3.50

Stumberleap, and Other Devon Writings (e-book)

A collection of nature essays and sketches of village life in Georgeham, N. Devon, in the 1920s, together with powerful pieces on the First World War. Included also are some of Williamson's classic short stories, including ‘Stumberleap’, the mysterious 'Whatever Has Happened' and 'The Heller'. Illustrated with contemporary photographs.

£3.50

The Dawn is My Brother (e-book only)

The Dawn is My Brother, Richard Williamson's first book, was published in 1959, and was runner-up for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. It is a book of uncommon quality. Intensely personal and honest, brilliantly alight with the unaffected candour of its author’s personality – and his inborn literary skill – it is an infectiously cheerful autobiography, brimming with enthusiasm for the countryside and the open air, for the world of trees, plants and animals, for rivers, sea and sky.

£3.50

The Notebook of a Nature-lover (e-book)

An anthology originally written as a regular column for the Sunday Referee that reflects Henry Williamson’s unique ability to communicate his passion for the English countryside, whether it be observing salmon leaping in the River Bray, watching partridges in his field and a spider in its web, walking on Dartmoor and Exmoor, or tales of his young children exploring the natural world.

£3.50

The Novels of Henry Williamson (e-book only)

This brilliant long essay by the noted literary critic John Middleton Murry, considers Henry Williamson’s novels up to 1954. Murry's essay remains essential reading for those who want to understand better Williamson’s writings. It is written in a clear, elegant style, while the literary analyses of the novels are its greatest distinction. Murry thought very highly of the early books making up A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight.

£2.50

Threnos for T. E. Lawrence and other writings, together with A Criticism of Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter by T. E. Lawrence (e-book)

A collection of important essays on books and writers, who include T. E. Lawrence, Richard Aldington, Richard Jefferies, W. H. Hudson, and Francis Thompson; together with Williamson's prefaces and introductions to books by Izaak Walton, V. M. Yeates, James Farrar, Walter Robson, John Heygate and others; and the text of T. E. Lawrence's long and entertaining letter of criticism of Tarka the Otter.

£3.50

Words on the West Wind (e-book)

This selection of pieces by Henry Williamson from the literary magazine The Adelphi contains both gems and important essays that deserve resurrection, including the original ending to his celebrated classic Tarka the Otter. Also included is an essay on Williamson by the Cornish poet Charles Causley and several fragments by the talented writer James Farrar, killed in the Second World War aged just 20.

£3.50