Women on Nature

by Katharine Norbury (Editor)

Overview

“An entertaining and eclectic anthology of nature writing by women about the ‘east Atlantic archipelago’ or British isles.… For readers in search of a new take on the genre, this is a great place to start.” —Publishers Weekly

Now in paperback—a landmark gathering of writing, by women, about the natural world

Women, through the centuries and to present time, writing about the natural world, in this landmark anthology—with pieces gathered from works of fiction, poetry, but also household planners, gardening diaries, recipe books…

For the very first time, this anthology collects together the work of women, over the centuries and up to the present day, who have written about the natural world in Britain, Ireland and the outlying islands of that archipelago. Alongside the traditional forms of the travelog, the walking guide, books on birds, plants and wildlife, Women on Nature embraces alternative modes of seeing and recording that turn the genre on its head.

Katharine Norbury has sifted through the pages of women’s writing to show the multitude of ways in which they have observed the natural world about them, from the fourteenth-century writing of the anchorite nun Julian of Norwich to the seventeenth-century travel journal of Celia Fiennes; from the keen observations of Emily Brontë to a host of brilliant contemporary voices.

Women on Nature presents a groundbreaking vision of the natural world which, in addition to being a rich and scintillating anthology that shines a light on many unjustly overlooked writers, is of unique importance in terms of women’s history and the history of writing about nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781800180413
Publisher:	Unbound
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	920,471
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Editor Katharine Norbury is the author of The Fish Ladder which was shortlisted for the 2016 Wainwright Prize, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and was a Book of the Year in the Guardian, Telegraph and Observer newspapers. She has contributed to the Observer, the Guardian, the Telegraph, The Washington Post and Lonely Planet magazine.

Table of Contents

Introduction Katharine Norbury 1

Kathryn Aalto 9

Naoko Abe 17

Kitty Aldridge 20

Monica Ali 22

Elizabeth von Arnim 25

Polly Atkin 27

Jane Austen 28

Anna Laetitia Barbauld 29

Cicely M. Barker 31

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 32

Amy-Jane Beer 33

Isabella Beeton 42

Gertrude Bell 44

Frances Bellerby 45

Claire-Louise Bennett 48

Sharon Blackie 50

Enid Blyton 51

Tessa Boase 53

Dorothy Bonarjee 57

Alison Brackenbury 58

Kate Bradbury 59

Charlotte Brontë 61

Emily Brontë 69

Nancy Campbell 72

Keggie Carew 74

Natasha Carthew 83

Margaret Cavendish 88

Nicola Chester 95

Frances Cornford 99

Linda Cracknell 100

Anne Dacre 106

Miriam Darlington 108

Kerri ní Dochartaigh 118

George Eliot 127

Christine Evans 130

Margiad Evans 132

Sara Evans 134

Celia Fiennes 142

Anna Fleming 150

Tiffany Francis-Baker 155

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 159

Josie George 162

Chrissie Gittins 166

Sinead Gleeson 169

Sally Goldsmith 180

Eluned Gramich 186

Jay Griffiths 191

Melissa Harrison 193

Hannah Hauxwell 199

Jacquetta Hawkes 200

Edith Holden 202

Katie Holten 203

Olga Jacoby 204

Kathleen Jamie 205

Judith Jedamus 206

Julian of Norwich 208

Jackie Kay 210

Margery Kempe 212

Louise Kenward 215

Linda Lear 220

Jessica J. Lee 223

Rachel Lichtenstein 228

Ann Lingard 236

Amy Liptrot 244

Karen Lloyd 249

Jane Lovell 255

Helen Macdonald 258

Sara Maitland 262

Mary Malyon 266

Pippa Marland 268

Bláthnaid McAnulty 275

Zakiya Mckenzie 276

Jean McNeil 278

Charlotte Mew 283

Alice Meynell 285

Emma Mitchell 286

Jan Morris 292

Helen Mort 295

Elizabeth Rose Murray 296

Stephanie Norgate 302

Annie O'Garra Worsley 304

Irenosen Okojie 309

Deborah Orr 311

Alice Oswald 319

Ruth Padel 321

Thomasine Pendarves 324

Katherine Philips 326

Dorothy Pilley 327

Sylvia Plath 334

Katrina Porteous 335

Heather Ramskill 47, 399

Jini Reddy 337

Rachel Rooney 342

Lynne Roper 343

Christina Rossetti 349

Vita Sackville-West 351

Polly Samson 355

Anita Sethi 357

Tanya Shadrick 168, 265

Hilary Shepherd 365

Nan Shepherd 368

Mary Sidney 371

Daniela F. Sieff 372

Ali Smith 376

Charlotte Smith 378

Stevie Smith 379

Jean Sprackland 380

Jo Sweeting 117, 219, 318, 423

Aletheia Talbot 381

Sarah Thomas 382

Jessica Traynor 389

Trileigh Tucker 390

Evelyn Underhill 398

Dorothy Wellesley 400

Phillis Wheatley 408

Isabella Whitney 409

Nic Wilson 412

Virginia Woolf 415

Dorothy Wordsworth 424

Biographical Notes on the Contributors 429

Acknowledgements 451

Copyright Acknowledgements 453

Index 461

Supporters' names 469

Editorial Reviews

08/30/2021

Norbury (The Fish Ladder) assembles an entertaining and eclectic anthology of nature writing by women about the “east Atlantic archipelago” or British isles. Noting in her introduction that nature is a fraught and contested term, Norbury takes a loose approach, all in service of pushing back against the fact that “what we think of as nature writing has been associated almost exclusively with men.” The essays, fiction, and poetry that follow thus reflect a wide range of views, and while many selections are contemporary, the historic range is also broad, including contributions from of Julian of Norwich on the Garden of Eden, Margery Kempe on a storm at sea, and a striking snippet of visionary nature writing by Thomasine Pendarves. A number of the essays, such as Nicola Chester’s “Desire Paths,” are about preserving nature, but some of the brightest stray from that path, such as Sara Evans’s essay “Under the Opium Spell,” about the devastating effects of opium cultivation in the British fens in the early 19th century and Dorothy Pilley’s buoyant “Climbing Days,” about her time rock climbing. For readers in search of a new take on the genre, this is a great place to start. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

An entertaining and eclectic anthology of nature writing by women about the ‘east Atlantic archipelago’ or British isles. Noting in her introduction that nature is a fraught and contested term, Norbury takes a loose approach, all in service of pushing back against the fact that ‘what we think of as nature writing has been associated almost exclusively with men.’ … For readers in search of a new take on the genre, this is a great place to start.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher