Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
BILL LAWS has written seven books on garden history; his last title, Artist's Gardens (Ward Lock, 1999) has sold 20,000 copies in the UK. He writes for The Telegraph, Sainsbury's Magazine and Period House. Formerly a professional gardener, he manages an organic garden on the Welsh borders.<p>‘This book confirms the splendid eccentricity of the British, which often involves oddly dressed men opting to walk long distances for no apparent reason.’</p>
BBC <i>Countryfile</i> magazine
<p>‘Laws’ sprightly, often arch, account of Britain’s hiking heroes is a pleasure to read.’</p>
<i>Walk</i> magazine
‘This book confirms the splendid eccentricity of the British, which often involves oddly dressed men opting to walk long distances for no apparent reason.’ – BBC Countryfile magazine
‘Laws’ sprightly, often arch, account of Britain’s hiking heroes is a pleasure to read.’ – Walk magazine
'The great affair is to move: to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot,' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. This book celebrates the history of walking for leisure and pleasure.
There’s no shortage of the famous, and the not-so-famous, exponents of a good, long walk: Dr Jonson and his faithful Boswell on their Hebridean jaunt; John Taylor, whose Penniless Pilgrimage – a record of his 1618 journey from London to Edinburgh – provided the first account of a walking tour; and Samuel Coleridge who conceived his epic tale of the Ancient Mariner on a ramble through Devon. Celebrating the history of walking for leisure and pleasure, Bill Laws tells the stories behind key walking inventions such as the rucksack, bloomers, youth hostels and the long-distance route.
Fully illustrated throughout, A Ramble Through the History of Walking is sure to delight anyone interested in the engaging history of one of man’s favourite pastimes.
'The great affair is to move: to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot,' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. This book celebrates the history of walking for leisure and pleasure.
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- ‘The Great Affair is to Move’
- Chapter 1 – First Footers
- Thomas Coryate
- Mr Bos, Drover
- Ben Jonson
- William Lithgow
- Foster Powell
- Footnote: Walking Boots
- Captain Robert Barclay Allardice
- Alfred Watkins
- Chapter 2 – Devoted Walkers
- John Bunyan
- Footnote: What Walkers Wear
- Pastor Moritz
- Reverends Bingley, Williams and Warner
- Francis Kilvert
- Canon Cooper
- Chapter 3 – Poets in Motion
- ‘Three persons and one soul’
- Samuel Coleridge
- William Wordsworth
- Dorothy Wordsworth
- William Hazlitt
- Thomas de Quincey
- Edward Thomas
- Footnote: The Rucksack
- Chapter 4 – Bringing it to Book
- John Taylor
- William Hutton
- Ellen Weeton
- Footnote: Bloomers
- George Borrow
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Hilaire Belloc
- William Hudson
- Chapter 5 – A Walk on the Wild Side
- Leslie Stephen
- Benny Rothman
- Footnote: The Devil’s Rope
- Tom Stephenson
- Stephen Graham
- Herbert Gatliff
- Chapter 6 – Route-Masters and Record Breakers
- Hugh Munro and William Poucher
- ‘A. Walker’
- Frank Noble
- Footnote: The Stile
- Trailblazers
- Record Breakers
- Further Reading
- Acknowledgements
'The great affair is to move: to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot,' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. This book celebrates the history of walking for leisure and pleasure.