! I ELD AND FARM ..,, ‘)1 , 4, ---The review of Field and Farm
by Mr. Anthony itnwaite is vitiated by the reviewer's imperfect know- ■ je„tige of Jefferies's life and work. He writes: C'erics, during the ten final years of his greatest prary productiveness (during which he wrote all il4t anyone remembers of him), was a suburban °Moner turning out essays on rural themes in SYdenhan;.'
would be difficult, Sir, to cram more incorrect ormation into so short a space! Far from being SUburban Londoner, Jefferics did not leave the deep countryside of Wiltshire until 1877, then he went to live at Surbiton, not Sydenham, and Surbiton was a Very rural spot. Jefferics left Surbiton after five years, spent some years at Brighton, a short spell at Eltham, just over a year at Crowborough and finally removed to Goring-on-Sea, where he died in 1887.
Before he left Wiltshire he had written the Game- keeper at Home, the 'Amateur Poacher, Wild Life in a Southern County and Round About a Great Estate, which some good judges would consider among his most attractive books. All were printed in serial form before book publieation.
Jefferies's only connection with ,Sydenham was the fact that, as a lad, he spent one or two long holidays with his uncle and aunt, the Harrilds, at Shanklin Villa, but there is no record that he wrote anything there of any importance.
If I may say so in all good humout;, what Mr. Thwaite is pleased to call. 'haphazard' selection is more than matched by what I think is distinctly 'haphazard' revicwing.—Yours faithfully,
Previous page
