The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Toilers of the Field, by Richard Jefferies

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Title: The Toilers of the Field

Author: Richard Jefferies

Release Date: December 13, 2008 [EBook #27516]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE TOILERS OF THE FIELD

BY

RICHARD JEFFERIES

AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," ETC. ETC.

[Illustration: THE SILVER LIBRARY]

_NEW IMPRESSION_

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1898

_All rights reserved_

[Illustration: RICHARD JEFFERIES.

_From the bust by Miss Margaret Thomas, in Salisbury Cathedral._

_Photographed by Mr. Owen, Salisbury._]

_BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE._

_First Edition, October 1892._
_Reprinted, November 1892 and January 1893._
_Issued in Silver Library, November 1893._
_Reprinted, June 1898._

PREFACE.

The first and larger part of this volume, from which it takes its name,
consists of papers which will be new to the large majority of readers of
Richard Jefferies' works. The five entitled, "The Farmer at Home," "The
Labourer's Daily Life," "Field-faring Women," "An English Homestead,"
and "John Smith's Shanty," appeared in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1874, long
before Jefferies had gained any portion of that fame which was so long
in coming, and came in full measure too late. Of the three letters to
the _Times_, written in 1872, one was republished, with the permission
of Mrs. Jefferies, in an appendix to Mr. Walter Besant's "Eulogy of
Richard Jefferies." It finds its natural place in this volume with the
other papers, which give so clear a picture of the life of all classes
of the cultivators of the soil in the early seventies. The "True Tale of
the Wiltshire Labourer" has never previously been published, and is
included in this volume by the kind permission of Mr. G. H. Harmer of
the _Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard_, for which paper it was written
when Jefferies was on its staff, but for some reason was never used.

All the papers in P