Happy Countryman

London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd. Very Good/Good. 1956. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo Dust jacket in clear protective sleeve. rubbed and creased to edges, tiny tears with a tiny piece missing from back, price clipped. Red cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. Previous owners pencil details on ffep. Frontis plate. 212 pages clean and tight. E. L. Roberts counts himself a lucky man. Born in the heart of the country, his whole life has been spent off the beaten track in remote places as widely diverse as the Outer Hebrides and the East Coast marshes. And, as he himself asks, what greater gift could any true countryman ask? This book is the result of his many years as a practising naturalist during which he has watched all of the common and most of the rarer birds and beasts in their native haunts. Roberts is the most companionable of observers, and as we accompany him through wood and meadow, over moor and marsh, on beetling cliff and lonely shore, we encounter more than the fur and feather of wild places. Gamekeepers, wildfowlers and poachers are his friends, and many a local "character" comes to delight us with his reflections on nature and his conclusions on life. In such company who could ever say that life in the country lacks colour and excitement! Roberts writes with an easy descriptive charm, and the black and-white sketches with which he enlivens his text are quite enchanting. "It is a book that any true countryman must enjoy and any true sportsman read with real pleasure" reported our reader when he read the author's typescript. It is an opinion in which we heartily concur. .