The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

Product Information

Still hard to get much of a sense about this rather quiet, mysterious artist--I came away with much more familiarity with her father, about whom the author waxes rhapsodic. This book brings in her family history, paintings and illustrations she did for books and magazines, and puts a face to the "Edwardian Lady". On every single page, it is clear that she gave such consideration to everything she put down on paper.

You need to look at her published album 'in the flesh': feel the smoothness of the pages, notice her handwriting and appreciate, first-hand, her artwork. I did find it interesting to find out her family's religious background: Unitarian, and also involved in spiritualism, which included the practice of seances and automatic writing. Edith's mother was Emma Wearing, a Spiritualist and Unitarian, and former governess who wrote two religious books, Ursula's Childhood and Beatrice of St Mawse, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. This woman had talent akin to Beatrix Potter's, but without quite as much need to self-market and a desire to teach as much as produce, she wasn't destined to become a household name to anyone except fans of her Nature Notes, which was published decades after she died.

Take a walk by your home and see what you have missed, ride a bicycle and wave to your neighbors neighbours or visit a park and observe nature in all its glory. Indeed, Taylor addresses this in her epilogue: ‘Despite the widespread posthumous fame, the real Edith Holden has remained elusive. It is an incredibly lovely homage to the natural world, and keen naturalists will surely find of interest how much has changed in the intervening eleven decades.

I don't think the robins really care for cocoa-nut; but they don't like to see the tits enjoying anything, without claiming a share. Climbing up the banks to meet them are tall purple fox-gloves and nodding heads of grasses heavy with pollen, mingled with Purple and Yellow Hatches and Clover blossom. Edith Holden's words, all carefully written by hand, included her favourite poems, personal thoughts and observations on the wildlife she saw surrounding her home in Warwickshire, and on her travels through England and Scotland. Our resources are crucial for knowledge lovers everywhere—so if you find all these bits and bytes useful, please pitch in. An ok biography of Edith Holden whose nature notes for one year formed the book A Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.I think I liked the way the book informed me about the Edwardian era, how England was changing with the second industrial revolution, and the way ideas were changing, too. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. She became famous following the posthumous publication of her Nature Notes for 1906, in facsimile form, as the book The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady in 1977, which was an enormous publishing success. This is a pleasant snapshot of a year, 1906, and the observations of a naturalist, Edith Holden, as she records the days from January to December, along with her walks in the countryside -- Olton, Warwickshire, which apparently was still rural then.

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Edith was born in 1871; she and her two younger sisters, who were also very talented, studied at the prestigious Birmingham School of Art, and were encouraged to follow their interests as much as was possible. For the reader, it's a visit, with her as a guide, to a distant time and place that is still green in her hand. Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality.Sometimes it's the little things that mean the most, and the journey - not the destination - that counts. It was not until the next morning that he learned that her body had been found at six o'clock on the Tuesday morning. The bough was out of reach, and with the aid of her umbrella, Edith had tried to break it off, fallen forward into the river and drowned.

In this beautiful book, Holden ‘recorded in words and paintings the flora and fauna of the British countryside through the changing seasons of the year’. On the next page (10 pages removed, though), you'd have, "Edith got married at age 39 and there is not much information available about the 10 years of her marriage before her tragic death by drowning. While reading this book from cover to cover may feel a bit dry, the watercolor sketches are a delight to look upon.

Its amazingly detailed drawings and paintings of nature are coupled with the author's notes and poetry of the time. So, on one page you have something like, "Edith visited her sister in London and enjoyed the London scene. Whilst the biographical details here are perhaps not as extensive as I was expecting, I feel Taylor handled the information she was able to find very well indeed.