Richard Mabey Collection
The Unofficial Countryside
During the early 1970s Richard Mabey set about mapping the Unofficial Countryside – crumbling city docks and overgrown bomb sites, canals and car parks. He discovered that nature flourishes in the spaces we have abandoned , and this seminal book has remained one of the most essential books on nature.
Beechcombings
Through the lens of just one species, the beech tree, Richard Mabey creates an urgent, passionate narrative for trees, weaving his own wood-words from his life, from youthful hunter-gatherer, Romantic teenager to beechwood owner-manager. At heart a plea to abandon the urge to dominate the wild, Beechcombings was first published in 2007; this new special, hardback edition has a new foreword by the author, and celebrates Richard Mabey’s place as our foremost nature writer.
Nature Cure
At the height of his career, having recently published Flora Britannica, the author and naturalist fell in to a deep and all consuming depression. Unable to rise from his bed, his face turned to the wall, Richard Mabey found that the touchstones of his life – his love for nature and the land – could no longer offer him solace. But over time, with help from friends and a move to East Anglia, he slowly recovered, finding a new partner, and a new relationship with landscape.
Nature Cure, full of nuance and energy, was a pioneering book in the genre that has since become known as New Nature Writing, and received many plaudits on publication.
