Description:
J. A. Baker's extraordinary classic of British nature writing was first published in 1967. Greeted with acclaim, it went on to win the Duff Cooper Prize, the pre-eminent literary prize of the time. Luminaries such as Ted Hughes, Barry Lopez and Andrew Motion have cited it as one of the most important books in twentieth-century nature writing.
Despite the association of peregrines with the wild, outer reaches of the British Isles, The Peregrine is set on the flat marshes of the Essex coast, where J. A. Baker spent long winters looking and writing about the visitors from the uplands--peregrines that spend the winter hunting the huge flocks of pigeons and waders that share the desolate landscape with them.
This new edition of the timeless classic, published to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first publication, features an afterword by one of the book's greatest admirers, Robert Macfarlane.
Brief description:
Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people, and place. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Prize for Literature and the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence, among others. His best-selling books have been translated into more than thirty languages, won many prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theater, radio, and dance. He has also written operas, plays, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe. He has collaborated with artists, including Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood, and with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. He lives in Cambridge, England, where he is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Review Quotes:
"The Peregrine should be known as one of the finest works on nature ever written."
-- "BBC Wildlife"