287 pp. 8 x 5 3/4. A work of natural history by the author best known for his novel Green Mansions. Hudson's The Purple Land was also referenced in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. CONTENTS: I. Thistle-Down; II. Charm of the Downs; III. The Living Garment; IV. A Fairy Fauna; V. Wild Life; VI. The Shepherd of the Downs; VII. Shepherds and Wheatears; VIII. Silence and Music; IX. Summer Heat; X. Swallows and Churches; XI. Autumn; XII. West of the Adur; XIII. The Maritime District; XIV. Chichester; XV. Written in West Downland; Index. "William Henry Hudson (4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922) was an author, naturalist, and ornithologist....Hudson settled in England during 1869. He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888–1899) and British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including Hampshire Day (1903), Afoot in England (1909) and A Shepherd's Life (1910), which helped foster the back-to-nature movement of the 1920s and 1930s. He was a founding member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds."
