The Invention of the Countryside

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xx

   PDF

2. Inventing the Countryside: An Introduction

   1. Inventing the Countryside: An Introduction

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 1-25

3. From Country to Countryside

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27

      PDF

   2. The Greenness of Hunting

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 29-53

   3. Land, and Writing about Land

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 54-72

   4. Game and the Poacher

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 73-91

   5. The Sporting Life

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 92-112

   6. The Origins of the Anti-Hunting Campaign

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 113-142

4. Hunting a Country

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 143-143

      PDF

   2. Sportswomen

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 145-167

   3. The Pleasures of the Chase circa 1735 to circa 1831

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 168-194

   4. The Pleasures of Surtees

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 195-201

5. Walking in the Countryside

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 203-203

      PDF

   2. The Pleasures of Perambulation

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 205-219

   3. ‘This Lime-Tree Bower’ as Walking Poem

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 220-229

   4. Dartmoor Visible

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 230-244

6. Back Matter

   Pages 245-306

   PDF

Today's hunting debate began in the eighteenth century, when the idea of the countryside was being invented through the imaginative displacement of agricultural production in favour of country sports and landscape tourism. Between the Game Act of 1671 and its repeal in 1831, writers on walking and hunting often held opposed views, but contributed equally to the origins of modern ecology, while sharing a commitment to trespass that preserved common rights in an era of growing privatization.

• ecology
• English literature
• poem
• British and Irish Literature

'[Landry] writes objectively yet with well-researched passion...Each chapter is well argued and within each chapter are many charming vignettes on attitudes...the delights it holds are well worth reading. It is strongly recommended.' - James Crowden, Western Morning News

'...a superbly rich study...students of literature, landscape and cultural history at all levels... will wish to reread it again and again.' - Choice

'...a scholarly thesis in its structure...the dazzlingly technical precision of her analysis...betrays the eye of a keen and experienced horsewoman.' - Timothy Mowl, Times Literary Supplement

'[Landry's] insights give an illuminating background to familiar debates and concepts.' - Robbie Hudson, The Sunday Times

'...an important contribution to the study of literature and the environment...an engaging book.' - Deborah Kennedy, The Wordsworth Circle

DONNA LANDRY is Professor of English at Wayne State University and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. Her publications include, as author, The Muses of Resistance: Labouring-Class Women's Poetry in Britain, 1739-1796 and, with Gerald MacLean, she is co-author of Materialist Feminisms.

Policies and ethics