A Traveller in Little Things

by William Henry Hudson

"You are a traveller in little things--in something very small--which takes you into the villages and hamlets, where you meet and converse with small farmers, innkeepers, labourers and their wives, with other persons who live on the land. In this way you get to hear a good deal about rent and cost of living, and what the people are able and not able to do." Thus was described William Henry Hudson, who was delighted with this portrayal. Hudson was a writer, naturalist, and trained ornithologist from Argentina, a son of Anglo-American parents who wrote exclusively in English. While many of his books dealt with South American life--including Green Mansions, The Purple Land, and the autobiographical Far Away and Long Ago--he also focused on Britain, to which he emigrated in 1874. A Traveller in Little Things is one such title, a collection of essays and sketches, many of which were originally printed in The New Statesman, The Saturday Review, The Nation, and The Cornhill Magazine. Throughout, Hudson's keen observations, lively writing, and charming anecdotes make this a delightful collection of "little things" from one of the most unique writers of his generation.

Genres: Classics

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

William Henry Hudson was an Anglo-Argentine author, naturalist and ornithologist. His works include Green Mansions (1904).

Argentines consider him to belong to their national literature as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, the Spanish version of his name. He spent his youth studying the local flora and fauna and observing natural and human dramas on then a lawless frontier, publishing his ornithological work in Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society, initially in an English mingled with Spanish idioms. He settled in England during 1874. He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888-1899) and British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including Hampshire Days (1903), Afoot in England (1909) and A Shepherd's Life (1910). People best know his nonfiction in Far Away and Long Ago (1918). His other works include: The Purple Land (That England Lost) (1885), A Crystal Age (1887), The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), A Little Boy Lost (1905), Birds in Town and Village (1919), Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn (1920), and A Traveller in Little Things (1921).