Little Toller books were founded to ‘to revive forgotten and classic books about nature and rural life in the British Isles.’ They do this brilliantly, reprinting some real gems of rural life, each beautifully illustrated.
I first came across Little Toller when browsing the excellent natural history and nature writing section of Topping & Company bookshop in Ely. Which, it has to be said, is one of the best independent bookshops in the country, they now have branches in Bath, Edinburgh and St Andrews. They know that buying books is an emotional as well as cerebral pursuit, requiring coffee or tea and biscuits whilst you sit by a window and cogitate.
On the shelf in front of me were virtually the whole set of Toller’s ‘Nature Classics’ paperback reprints of the very best nature and countryside writing. My eye ran across the authors, familiar ones and others that I knew little or nothing of. I soon had their whole stock off the shelf, I had to buy three as I’d spilt coffee on one and got biscuit crumbs stuck between the pages of the others. I should add, in case you imagine me smuggling a thermos in under my coat, that the wonderful staff offer you tea and coffee for just being there.
After that I have collected all of this series over a few years, each a work of art in its own right, beautifully illustrated, typeset and bound. The twenty plus books include classics from HE Bates (Through The Woods), Adrian Bell (Men And The Fields), as well as books there were new discoveries to me, each one a revelation.
We are spoilt for nature writing in the early 21st century, the likes of MacFarlane, Mabey and Lewis-Stempel have given us deep and engrossing writing to lose oneself in. One can only despair at the human race fundamentally separated from nature, and we turn to nature writing as a portal to reconnect and discover solace within its embrace. Modern nature writing is sufused with this sense of loss, but you will find similar concerns and sentiments within these Little Toller books. Delve into the pages of John Seymour’s The Fat of The Land and you find a way to lead a life less polluting and damaging to the environment.
We are already several steps of separation from the land, but dip into the pages of Men And The Fields for instance, and you are thrust into a now vanished working landscape where men and women are bound up with the fabric of a working countryside. I often find this different perspective to be more illuminating than more modern writing. Throw yourself into the woods with HE Bates and you are drawn into a powerfully drawn landscape, drawn in prose that is surprisingly aware and political, his loathing of the gamekeeper is priceless for instance.
Farming Revolution
Go back a century or so and the time of horse power was being usurped by the tractor. A time where the fields were small and the land wasn’t poisoned with insecticides and pesticides. A time where woodland echoed to the crack of billhooks in the coppice and the smell of charcoal making wafted across the land. A time when there was a relationship between farmer and nature, soon to be swepat away by internal combustion, chemicals and industrial farming. Agriculture has always been in a state of flux, sometimes change happens at speed, sometimes it takes generations. Dipping into these volumes you feel that change first hand.
The Shadow of War
Some of these books are lent an air of tragedy, Edward Thomas was deeply sensitive and perceptive, his text, The South Country, is achingly beautiful. He died in 1915 on a battlefield in France, never to see his beloved English countryside again. Perhaps there is a truth of great nature writing, that it is as much about us as the flora and fauna of its gaze. personaly, I find a sense of grounded perspective, compassion and a sense of redemption within the pages of these Nature Classics.
Illustration
Every volume is beautifully illustrated by a glorious range of artists, each adding an extra dimension to the authors words.
Wood engraving by Howard Phipps from ‘A Shepherd’s Life‘ by W.H. Hudson
Little Toller are publishing books that celebrate, venerate and enshrine our relationship with the land, and through that our own place in this world.
Dive in at www.littletoller.co.uk
