The Diary of a Country Parson
Inbunden bok. The Folio Society. First Folio edition, sixth printing uppl. 1992. 445 sidor.
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The Diary of a Country Parson
James Woodforde
Observera att denna bok är på engelska. Please note that this book is in English.
The book is a hardcover with slipcase. It is new, unread and in perfect condition.
First Folio edition, sixth printing
Published by The Folio Society in 1992.
Selected and introduced by David Hughes. Engravings by Ian Stephens.
Introduction by Raleigh Trevelyan.
Bound in quarter buckram with hand-marbled paper sides
Set in Monotype Baskerville
464 pages with 31 black & white engravings
Coloured page tops
Parson Woodforde belongs beside Samuel Pepys as one of the great English diarists. He began his diary in 1759, when he was accepted as a scholar of New College, Oxford, and from 1761 he wrote almost every day until a few months before his death at the age of 63 (the final words of his diary were ‘Roast beef &c’). He left behind 68 little books in which are contained the most complete and delightful picture we have of 18th-century rural life. As Virginia Woolf said of his diary, it is ‘neither writing nor reading, but almost indistinguishable from living’.
In this handsome edition, wood engravings by Ian Stephens bring to life the pastoral beauties and modest amusements of Parson Woodforde’s quiet life: fishing trips, near-daily card games, concerts and dinners (large ones, famously and minutely documented) with friends. Occasionally the pleasant tenor of his days is ruffled by the impudence of a servant or friend (‘Mrs Davie and Nancy made me up an Apple Pye Bed’) or the louche behaviour of his younger brother (‘Brother John is very indifferent by his being too busy with Girls’). There are excitements — the launching of a hot-air balloon, the day the pigs got drunk – but essentially his life was a peaceful one and sometimes, as he puts it, ‘comical dull’. His diary is anything but. As the novelist David Hughes states in his introduction, ‘No amount of history written with hindsight can be anything like as good as a document never meant to be read.’
Beautifully crafted, imaginative editions of the world’s great works of fiction and non-fiction, Folio Society books offer a rich literary experience to readers of all ages. The books selected for publication are timeless – they will be enjoyed and appreciated now and in the future. Because each book is considered as an individual object of value in its own right, there is a variety to our aesthetic – the only uniformity is in the quality of every single book.
Format: 21x15x4 cm, 445 pages.
