| Finding W H Hudson – The Writer Who Came to Britain to Save the Birds | by Conor Mark Jameson | Pelagic Publishing | 2023 | Paperback | eBook available | 360 Pages | 39 Black & White Photos | ISBN: 9781784273286 | £21.99p |
The Publisher’s View:
An imposing, life-size oil painting dominates the main meeting room at the RSPB’s base in the heart of England: ‘the man above the fireplace’ – always present, rarely mentioned. Curious about the person in the portrait, the author began a quest to rediscover William Henry Hudson (1841–1922). It became a mission of restoration: stitching back together the faded tapestry of Hudson’s life, re-colouring it in places and adding new threads from the testaments of his closest friends.
This book traces the unassuming field naturalist’s path through a dramatic and turbulent era: from Hudson’s journey to Britain from Argentina in 1874 to the unveiling by the prime minister of a monument and bird sanctuary in his honour 50 years later, in the heart of Hyde Park – a place where the young immigrant had, for a time, slept rough. At its core, this extraordinary story reveals Hudson’s deep influence on the creation of his beloved Bird Society by its founding women, and the rise of the conservation movement. It reveals the strange magnetism of this mysterious man from the Pampas – unschooled, battle-scarred and once penniless – that made his achievements possible, and left such a profound impression on those who knew him.
By the end of his life, Hudson had Hollywood studios bidding for his work. He was a household name through his luminous and seminal nature writing, and the Bird Society had at last reached the climax of a 30-year campaign, working to create the first global alliance of bird protectionists. A century after Hudson’s death, this is a long-overdue tribute to perhaps our most significant – and most neglected – writer-naturalist and wildlife campaigner.
The Author: Conor Mark Jameson, an award-winning writer and naturalist, is author of Silent Spring Revisited, Shrewdunnit and Looking for the Goshawk. He is a feature writer and has written for television and radio. He is Scots-Irish, Ugandan-born and lives in a corner of the forest in Cambridgeshire.
Fatbirder View:
Before opening the covers of this book, W H Hudson was not completely unknown to me… we had researched him a little for The Eponym Dictionary of Birds… the entry there says:
Hudson, WH
Hudson’s Black Tyrant Knipolegus hudsoni PL Sclater, 1872
Hudson’s Canastero Asthenes hudsoni PL Sclater, 1874
[Alt. Hudson’s Soft-tail]
William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) was born in Buenos Aires to American parents. He spent his childhood on the pampas but a heart condition forced his emigration to England (1870). He is generally regarded as a British author, naturalist and ornithologist. However, he is best known for his exotic romances, especially: Green Mansions (1904), which is set in a South American jungle. His memoir: Far Away and Long Ago (1918) lovingly recalls his childhood. Hudson was a sensitive observer of nature, particularly birds. He hated the vogue for ‘collecting’ birds and once said of John Gould (q.v.) that his obsession with hummingbirds was not the selfless appreciation of a true lover of nature, but no more than a magpielike addiction: “He regarded natural history principally as a science of dead animals – a necrology.” Whilst he met Gould only once (c.1875), he wrote a satirical pamphlet about him and described him as a ‘pretentious and unscientific ornithologist’. His books describe plants and animals in a highly personal manner with great force and beauty. Other works are: The Purple Land (1885), Argentine Ornithology (1888), The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), A Shepherd’s Life (1910) and A Hind in Richmond Park (1922). The novelist John Galsworthy said of him: “Hudson is … the finest living observer, and the greatest living lover of bird and animal life, and of Nature in her moods.”
Of course, as this detailed and carefully researched book shows, there was a great deal more to be known. The travails of his early life growing up in Argentina, sleeping rough when coming to England, his treatment of people around him (uncharacteristically sensitive for the Victorian era), right through to how much he did to promote conservation and, of course his fame. While he was self-deprecating, very many famous writers of his time considered him to be a literary giant, yet his nature writings and novels are hardly heard of today.
I for one am grateful to the author for reacquainting me with the man and vastly expanding my knowledge of him.
Fatbirder