The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of Natural History and Rural Life

Jefferies, Richard, 1848-1887Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.9

Word count: 278K words
Chapters: 28

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.The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of Natural History and Rural Life by JefferiesAuthor: Jefferies, Richard, 1848-1887,Language: English, Class: SK: Agriculture: Hunting sports, Release Date: Aug 2, 2011

Editor's review

Richard Jefferies was an important 19th-century British writer of nature essays. The Gamekeeper at Home takes the daily life of a rural gamekeeper as its entry point, writing about wildlife habits, seasonal changes in woodland, and rural livelihoods, combining natural-history observation with records of country life. Its strength lies in the author's patient depiction of birds, beasts, plants, and farming details; the prose is plain yet vivid, letting readers see a picture of English countryside on the edge of the industrial age. For Chinese readers, this book is both nature writing and a window into 19th-century English rural society and hunting culture. The Project Gutenberg edition is convenient for searching and excerpting, suitable for slow reading, reading in fragments, or reading alongside the author's other nature essays. Note that the book involves hunting and trapping, carrying the ideas of its time; readers may keep a historical distance.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy British and American nature essays and records of rural life
Readers interested in 19th-century English countryside and hunting culture
English learners needing public-domain English selections of nature writing
Readers willing to read descriptions slowly and build a vocabulary of natural history

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting tightly plotted stories or character-driven novels
Readers sensitive to hunting descriptions and animal killing
Readers seeking systematic ecology or modern conservation theory

Reading tips

Read by season or chapter, a small section at a time, taking notes on plant and animal names.
When encountering unfamiliar English rural objects and farming terms, check notes first, then reread the context.
Compare with modern nature essays to see the difference between 19th-century observation and contemporary ecological views.
English learners can closely read descriptive passages to accumulate expressions for scenery and animal behavior.

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.

FAQ

Is this book mainly about hunting?

Not entirely. It uses the gamekeeper's work and life as a thread, with much space devoted to wildlife habits, seasonal changes in woodland, rural people, and everyday farming. Hunting is an important background, but the book is closer to natural-history essays and sketches of rural life, suitable as slow-reading natural history.

Does the book carry outdated views of animals?

Yes. The work comes from a 19th-century English rural context, and its ideas about hunting, trapping, and controlling wildlife differ greatly from today's. Readers can treat it as a historical text, focusing on its nature observation and rural records while keeping a critical distance from content involving killing, rather than simply rejecting it by modern standards.

Is it suitable for English beginners?

Overall it is not a beginner's text. Jefferies's prose is natural in syntax, but the vocabulary involves many names of English rural plants, animals, farm work, and objects, where beginners may get stuck on nouns. Readers with some English reading foundation who are willing to look up words are advised to read selections, or start with short descriptive passages and gradually expand.

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About the author

Jefferies, Richard, 1848-1887 Author

Richard Jefferies (1848–1887) was an English essayist and novelist of the Victorian era. Public information about him is limited, and many details of his life remain uncertain. He was a prolific writer, with twenty works held in this collection, centred on natural history, rural life and personal reflection. Representative works such as The Life of the Fields, The Open Air and Wild Life in a Southern County record plants, animals and the rhythms of farming life with delicate precision, while The Story of My Heart turns to autobiographical spiritual meditation. The novel Bevis: The Story of a Boy follows a boy's growth, and After London; or, Wild England imagines the wilderness that follows the collapse of civilisation, showing a vision beyond pastoral essays. His writing is exact in observation and clear in style, often conveying a deep care for life and the land, and he is regarded as an important voice bridging the tradition of English nature writing.