A Countrywoman's Journal The Sketchbook of a Passionate Naturalist Margaret Shaw

The English countryside of the 1920s, still largely unspoiled by intensive agricultural practice and overdevelopment, is revealed in all its freshness by this unique two-year record kept by Sussex countrywoman Margaret Shaw. The diary, beguiling in its simple pleasures and direct approach, lively and humorous, is also beautiful, with the author's meticulous watercolour illustrations of the birds, beasts and flowers that enlivened her days. This high-quality facsimile reproduction offers a fascinating insight into an almost vanished world.\n\nFlora and Fauna\n\nBrilliant butterflies, songbirds and seabirds, wild flowers, bees and bugs: Margaret Shaw records in tender watercolour and warm prose the rich flora and fauna of the 1920s. In Shaw's world the eaves swarm with housemartins, elm trees still grow tall, and the hedgerows are full of 'quarrelsome, noisy wrens'.\n\n'Marsh Marigolds in bloom round the ponds. Masses of Cowslips, Water Lilies leaves coming up. Field Wood Rush plentifue