Synopsis
William Cobbett (1762-1835) was an essayist, politician, agriculturalist, journalist, and equestrian traveller. The son of a labourer, Cobbett was self taught. He enlisted in the British Army, then fled to Philadelphia to avoid prosecution for demanding a decent wage for his fellow soldiers. After several years in exile, Cobbett returned to England where he became politically active, eventually winning a seat in Parliament. In the early 1820s the new MP set out on horseback to make a series of personal tours through the English countryside. These observations were collected and make up the two volumes of Rural Rides . The two books are written in some of the finest prose to grace the English language. Considered one of the best accounts of rural England ever written they are detailed, factual, filled with shrewd observation and remain enduring classics.
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From the Back Cover
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.
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.
About the Author
British journalist and radical WILLIAM COBBETT (1762-1835) is also the author of The Progress of a Ploughboy to a Seat in Parliament (1830).
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