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Richard Jefferies

John Richard Jefferies (November 6 1848 - August 14 1888 ) was an English writer of fiction and books on the countryside.
He was born at Coate, near Swindon, Wiltshire, the son of a farmer. From early in life he showed a great love of the countryside, but was evidently temperamentally unsuitable to follow his father as a farmer, and in 1866 he found employment as a newspaper reporter for the North Wiltshire Herald.

Two of his books were written as children's books, Wood Magic (1881) and Bevis: the story of a Boy (1882), which are regarded as minor classics.

His most famous work, After London (1885) is of the type that could be best described as "post-holocaust science fiction"; after some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature, and the few survivors to a quasi-medieval way of life. The first chapters consist solely of a loving description of nature reclaiming England: fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, the hated London reverting to lake and swampland. The rest of the story is a strauightforward adventure/quest set many years later in the wild landscape and society; but the opening chapters set an example for many later science fiction stories.

not here yet -- marriage, illness, Brighton, other books

He died at Goring-on-Sea, Sussex.

After his death, a number of posthumous collections were made of his writings previously published in neswpapers and magazines, beginning with Field and Hedgerow (1889), edited by his widow. New collections have appeared over the century following his birth, but even now not all have been reprinted in book form.

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