Rural Rides, Volume 1Cosimo, Inc., 1 jan 2005 - 328 pagina's Upon beholding the masses of buildings, at Oxford, devoted to what they call "learning," I could not help reflecting on the drones that they contain and the wasps they send forth! -from "Burghclere (Hants), Sunday, 18 Nov." Son of an innkeeper, former soldier, champion of the working class, early anticorporate activist, and future Member of Parliament-Will Cobbett's unique eye offers us a perspective on 19th-century England we won't find anywhere else. Cobbett roamed Southern England on horseback in the years between 1821 and 1832, gathering his "economical and political observations relative to matters applicable to, and illustrated by, the state of" that charming part of the world, one in the throes of massive change in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Volume 1 covers the years 1821 to 1825 and features cutting observations on the smokelike fogs of London, the price of lodgings in Oxford, the meanness of landlords, and the pleasures of watching "very pretty girls" in their Sunday best going to church. This is an extraordinary record of a world long gone, one very little documented when it existed, by a voice who was far ahead of his time. British journalist and radical WILLIAM COBBETT (1762-1835) is also the author of The Progress of a Ploughboy to a Seat in Parliament (1830). |
Inhoudsopgave
3 | |
21 | |
From Kensington to Dartford Rochester Chatham and Faversham | 41 |
Norfolk and Suffolk Journal | 47 |
From Kensington to Battle through Bromley Sevenoaks and Tun | 57 |
Through Croydon Godstone East Grinstead and Uckfield to Lewes | 65 |
From London through Ware and Royston to Huntingdon | 84 |
From Kensington to Uphusband including a Rustic Harangue | 92 |
From Kensington to Worth in Sussex | 160 |
Through the Southeast of Hampshire back through the Southwest | 185 |
Through the Northeast part of Sussex and all across Kent from | 217 |
From Dover through the Isle of Thanet by Canterbury and Faver | 239 |
From Kensington across Surrey and along that county | 265 |
From Chilworth in Surrey to Winchester | 278 |
From Winchester to Berghclere | 292 |
From Berghclere to Petersfield | 312 |
Overige edities - Alles bekijken
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
acre Alresford amongst Avington barley beautiful believe Bill Botley bottom Burghclere called chalk church clay coming coppices corn crop crossed dare say debt distance England farm farm-house farmers Farnham feet fields Folkestone Forest gardens gentlemen Godalming Godstone grass ground half Hampshire heath Herefordshire hill Hindhead hops horse hundred Itchen Kent labourers land landlords live loam lofty London look Lord meadows means miles morning nearly never parish park Parliament parson passed Petworth poor Portsdown Hill pounds pretty rain Reigate rents ride ridges river road Ropley Dean seen sheep side Sir Thomas Baring smock-frock soil sort South Downs spot Surrey Sussex swedes talk tax-eaters taxes things thousand Thursley to-day told town trees turnips turnpike-road Uphusband vale valley village Weald weather wheat whole Winchester woods
Populaire passages
Pagina 19 - Their dwellings are little better than pig-beds, and their looks indicate that their food is not nearly equal to that of a pig.