Pastoral Days or, Memories of a New England Year

Gibson, W. Hamilton (William Hamilton), 1850-1896Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
210K words
Chapters
22

Tags

English Originals Essays and Miscellany Nature ObservationLocal AffectionChanging SeasonsSpiritual ComfortNostalgic YearsSlow ReadingDaily ReflectionsNaturalist NotesNew EnglandPastoral Romance

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Pastoral Days; or, Memories of a New England Year by W. Hamilton GibsonAuthor: Gibson, W. Hamilton (William Hamilton), 1850-1896,Language: English, Class: QH: Science: Natural history, Release Date: Nov 3, 2012

Editor's review

This is a collection of nature essays by W. Hamilton Gibson, recording rural observations and pastoral memories through the four seasons of a New England year. The author combines an interest in natural history with a literary touch, writing about plants, insects, birds, and animals and the changing seasons in fine, affectionate detail; the book sits at the intersection of natural history and pastoral essay. For readers who enjoy nature writing, naturalist observation, and slow-paced essays, it offers a sensory sample of nineteenth-century American rural life and also serves as a reference text for nature writing. There is no need to look for plot momentum; read it season by season, stopping as you please, and take notes alongside your own outdoor observations. If you use it for writing practice, notice how the author turns scientific observation into literary description. As a public-domain eBook, it is easy to search and excerpt, but be mindful of the gap between period notions of nature and today's ecological perspective.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read by seasonal chapter, and after each section record the corresponding natural phenomena around you.
  2. Carry a notebook and imitate the author's brief phenological observations and descriptive exercises.
  3. Read alongside similar nature essays and compare observational perspectives and language styles.
  4. Use the eBook's search function for plant or animal names to build your own naturalist reading index.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a collection of nature essays? It is a collection of pastoral memories in the nature-essay vein, centered on rural observations through the four seasons of a New England year; it is not a work of fiction. Read it season by season, stopping as you please, and do not expect a continuous plot.
Who was W. Hamilton Gibson? The records show he lived from 1850 to 1896, and this book is a public-domain work in natural history. He was interested in both naturalist observation and literary description, and the book records rural scenery and seasonal change in detail; for specifics of his life, consult other sources.
Can I read it without a background in natural history? Yes. The book is mainly literary description and does not require systematic natural history knowledge. Look up unfamiliar plant and animal names as needed and treat it as a slow-reading nature essay.
Is it suitable for practicing nature writing? Yes. The author's way of turning observation into literary description can serve as a reference for nature writing. Take brief phenological notes as you read and imitate his observational angle and language rhythm rather than copying the period context.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Gibson, W. Hamilton (William Hamilton), 1850-1896 Author

W. Hamilton Gibson (William Hamilton Gibson, 1850–1896) was an American nature writer and illustrator; public information about him is limited, and many details of his life are difficult to verify. Five of his works are held here, all centering on nature observation and outdoor life: Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms and How to Distinguish Them, a guide to identifying wild fungi; Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making, on camping and trapping skills; and Pastoral Days, a remembrance of a New England year. Writing from firsthand observation, he described plants, insects, birds, mushrooms and woodland life with care and warmth, combining practical guidance with the charm of the personal essay. His books suit nature lovers and outdoor readers.