Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of W(illiam) H(enry) Hudson, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 3020 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
She was vexed at the question, and turning her face away, refused to answer him. For though at all other times, and when he spoke of other things, she was gentle and loving in her manner, the moment he spoke of the Queen of the Mirage and the gifts she had bestowed on him, she became impatient, and rebuked him for saying such foolish things. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Charming, Innocent, Naturist
This tale, written in 1905 by an English author living in Argentina, is a fantastic gift for anyone who sees the world with a child's eyes. It is amazing to find a true naturist atmosphere in the story, which is the respect of all living forms, absolute trust in the goodness of people, the full skin contact with nature. The fact that the little boy finds himself without clothes for many days in the wilderness or meeting other people, and doesn't think about its lack anymore, is equally refreshing for today's reader. It is a true chef d'oeuvre which every family must read to their children.

A Little Boy Lost
I read this book as a teenager as it was given to me by an uncle.I still have the book today as it was my favorite.It is an exploration into fantasy and reality and I would recommend it for reading to anyone. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Some vague speculations passed through my mind as to how old the village might be. I had heard some person remark that it had formerly been much more populous, that many of its people had from time to time drifted away to the towns; their old empty cottages pulled down and no new ones built. The road was deep and the cottages on either side stood six to eight or nine feet above it. Where a cottage stood close to the edge of the road and faced it, the door was reached by a flight of stone or brick steps; at such cottages the landing above the steps was like a balcony, where one could stand and look down upon a passing cart, or the daily long straggling procession of children going to or returning from the village school. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Let us first examine the antiquated theory, as it must now be called. By bringing a raptorial insect and a firefly together, we find that the flashing light of the latter does actually scare away the former, and is therefore, for the moment, a protection as effectual as the camp-fire the traveller lights in a district abounding with beasts of prey. Notwithstanding this fact, and assuming that we have here the whole reason of the existence of the light-emitting power, a study of the firefly's habits compels us to believe that the insect would be just as well off without the power as with it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Anecdotal and Scientific
In The Naturalist in La Plata, Hudson does a good job of blending scientific content with interesting stories, anecdotes, and other tidbits from his observations of the area. Hudson grew up in the Pampas, and the book illustrates his special affinity for the region. Additionally, he has a love for nature and a respect for its wonders. An early environmentalist, Hudson often laments man's destruction of nature in this volume, presenting wonderful arguments as to the value of convservation. I probably wouldn't recommend this as an easy leisure read, but it is a good example of naturalist writing. Hudson's stories and obvious admiration of nature keep the book from being too dry. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Just out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common, lived in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so many kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a favourite spot with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and fluttered, as if wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve yards before flying away. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
A romance of the future, by the author of Green Mansions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This is worth a second read - probably more.....
The pastoral nature of this novel is such a disguise for it ends with the toughest, grittiest and most challenging ending I have ever read (stronger than Kafka's 'The Trial', or Christopher Priest's 'The Separation'). As a human being facing what we all face this ending is truly awful.

But what is Hudson telling us in this novel? Is it a Victorian approach to telling things that are otherwise inexpressible - that affection is not enough? That real love with all its manifestations must be honoured, because without it there is only death?

Here I find a challenge to psychoanalysis and all the techniques of psychology: 'I only discovered, what others have discovered before me, that the practice of introspection has a corrosive effect on the mind, which only serves to aggravate the malady it is intended to cure.' (If only I could stop introspection ......!) ) [page 279 Dutton edition of 1917]

But here the common man, Smith, plunged into this affectionate pastoral society, bemoans what he has just learned - that the young woman he loves can never love him as he wishes - 'I wish that I had never made that fatal discovery, that I might have continued still hoping and dreaming, and wearing out my heart with striving after the impossible, since any fate would have been preferable to the blank desolation which now confronted me.' [page 303-304 of the same edition]

I wonder what woman of Hudson's acquaintance he had to put aside with such enormous regret that he expressed these words!

Search this book out. Absorb its gentle fantasy and hold tight for a rough ending.

Other recommendations:
The Separation - Christopher Priest
The Trial - Franz Kafka
The Shepherd's Life - W H Hudson
Green Mansions - W H Hudson

This will take you to unexpected places
JB Priestly wrote a book about time ('Man and Time') and in it he referred to a WH Hudson novel called 'A Crystal Age'. His couple of paragraphs about 'A Crystal Age' stimulated my interest but nowhere could I find the novel he referred to. However, I did find 'Green Mansions' and I have read it several times. It is a beautiful novel with an undertone of darkness (is death the darkness that we all live with during the beauty of life?). Perhaps 'Green Mansions' disappointed me a little after triggering my romantic nerve. I did, however, keep exploring the writings of WH Hudson - 'Long Ago and Far Away', 'The Purple Land', 'Idle Days in Patagonia' and the wonderful 'A Shepherd's Life'.

I have just finished reading 'A Crystal Age' at last. I concur with JB Priestley's assessment. 'A Crystal Age' is worth the effort of pursuing - it is a surprising first-person utopian novel in which Hudson's love of nature does not render him oblivious to the fact that there are downsides in all worlds - all imaginable worlds. Just like the dark shadows in 'Green Mansions'. The end of 'A Crystal Age' is so surprising - I believe very few readers would see what is coming - I certainly didn't as I rushed on towards it. There is a certain illogic to the ending, but there is also something that haunts me continuously.

'A Crystal Age' is a stronger less romantic novel than 'Green Mansions', but it is also exceptional for many reasons. I don't hesitate in recommending 'Green Mansions' but I also urge readers to pursue 'A Crystal Age'. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
This work was first issued in 1885, by Messrs. Sampson Low, in two slim volumes, with the longer, and to most persons, enigmatical title of The Purple Land That England Lost. A purple land may be found in almost any region of the globe, and 'tis of our gains, not our losses, we keep count. A few notices of the book appeared in the papers, one or two of the more serious literary journals reviewing it (not favourably) under the heading of Travels and Geography; but the reading public cared not to buy, and it very shortly fell into oblivion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great Adventure
"Dangerous if read too late in life", Hemmingway.

Great Book
This is an excellent book if you can find it.

Poetic
I have just read this book and I think I could place it among the ones I liked the most (together with Gerald Durrell's ones): what I prefered was the poetic that filled the whole book , in the descriptions of landscapes, and people, that poetic you can't find in modern writers.

Men selected by nature
A window into a time and place where men culture and tools were formed by a harsh natural selection process. The wide open range wild herds of cattle and horses a few men isolated from civilization.Henry Hudson was there, his first impressions are from the viewpoint of an educated Englishman examining barbarians. He then gets immersed in the environment and sees the deeper human experience and the effects of total freedom and self reliance on the character of men

An adventure worthy to have been told and now read
If you are a fan of turn-of-the-century literature as I am, you will find this narrative a good read.I had never heard nor read anything about this Hudson fellow until I recently began to read "The Sun AlsoRises", which, as you may know, is Ernest Hemingway's first novel. Hemingway nonchalantly mentions Hudson and the travels of Lamb briefly inhis story.I was intrigued as I gathered Hemingway himself had read thebook and apparently liked it well enough to mention.Or perhaps I ammistaken.Regardless, this book is really as series of tales of adventuresin the jungles of South America.You meet the natives, the food, thelifestyle and the beautiful girls (as you might expect; latino woman arenotably lovely, in my experience).It should be noted, however, that theauthor, being a product of his times no doubt, is not particularlysensitive to political correctness. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Not only the crow was there: a magpie chattered as I came from the brake, but refused to show himself; and a little later a jay screamed at me, as only a jay can. There are times when I am intensely in sympathy with the feeling expressed in this ear-splitting sound, inarticulate but human. It is at the same time warning and execration, the startled solitary's outburst of uncontrolled rage at the abhorred sight of a fellow-being in his woodland haunt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a view from the ground (around 1900)
Hudson was such a wonderful pastoral writer (although his novel 'A Crystal Age' pushes well passed the pastoral), full of sensitive observations of nature - geography, buildings (yes, they are part of nature too), people (usually humble people) and especially birds. His childhood took place in Argentina but he always had a yearning for England. He did write about that other world too. At the start of 'Afoot in England' it appears he was undertaking his walks - free of guide books quite deliberately - with his wife. But she disappears midway through this book, is not refered too - not even obliquely - any more and I wonder what sort of tragedy might have marked his life at the time of writing. But whatever might have happened it didn't impair his ability to continue observing and reporting in a down-to-earth way (in comparison to, say, the somewhat aloof short stories of Rabindranath Tagore).

Other recommendations:
W H Hudson novels - 'A Crystal Age', 'Green Mansions'
W H Hudson non-fiction - 'A Shepherd's Life', 'Idle Days in Patagonia'
W H Hudson autobiography 'Far Away and Long Ago'
Rabindranath Tagore - selected short stories

... Read more

Book Description
A failed revolutionary attempt drives the hero of Hudson's novel to seek refuge in the primeval forests of south-western Venezuela. There, in the `green mansion' of the title, Abel encounters the wood-nymph Rima, the last survivor of a mysterious aboriginal race. The love that flowers between them is soon overshadowed by cruelty and sorrow.One of the acknowledged masters of natural history writing, W. H. Hudson forms an important link between nineteenth-century Romanticism and the twentieth-century ecological movement. First published in 1904 and a best-seller after its reissue a dozen years later, Green Mansions offers its readers apoignant meditation on the loss of wilderness, the dream of a return to nature, and the bitter reality of the encounter between savage and civilized man.Download Description
Running from a failed conspiracy to overthrow the government, Abel chooses to fulfill a lifelong desire and explore the thick and primitive wilderness surrounding the Orinoco river in Venezuela. Adventure, intrigue, and love await him under the "green mansions" of the impressive woodlands near the mountain of Ytaioa. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Nature Girl
This book encompasses the memoirs of Mr. Abel, an educated, middle class, urban dweller from Venezuela, who decides to journey throughout the primative wilderness of Guyana; he is transformed in the process._Green Mansions_ is a harrowing adventure story, a romance, but is, above all, probably one of the most artistically stylized pieces on nature ever written.Mr. Abel is vulnerable to his new environment's treacherous heat, its indigenous wildlife, the cruelties (as well as the hospitality) of its native peoples, and suffers periods of disease and starvation.

Mr. Abel falls in love with a strange, beautiful, and exceedingly elusive young woman, named Rima, who has a rare affinity with nature and its creatures.Rima, whose mysterious family background figures strongly in the plot, is raised by her grandfather, Nuflo, after her mother dies.Mr. Abel accuses Nuflo of hypocracy, but eventually comes to respect him.Mr. Abel, despite his background and personal attitudes, learns to adapt to and eventually to accept nature on its own terms.As frightening and disturbing as many of the parts of this extraordinary book are, it is never less than mesmerizing.

Romance versus Superiority
William Henry Hudson's novel Green Mansions is an exotic romance that takes place in the South American rainforest.The novel is written from the perspective of Abel, a young man who had to leave the city he was living in for political reasons.During his time in the rainforest he meets Rima, who he describes as a bird-like girl, and her grandfather Nuflo.Despite these two, Abel mainly interacts with the Indians with whom he was living before he met Rima and Nuflo.The Indians are mostly referred to as savages.
Green Mansions mainly focuses on the intimation of love and death, and the romanticism of nature versus the disturbing influences of civilization.However, Abel does not see any living creature during his stay in the rainforest as equal to him.He thinks of himself as superior to the Indians, Nuflo, and to Rima as well.He bases his sense of superiority on a better education, a greater intelligence, as well as a better physical condition.This sense of superiority is kept throughout the novel.However, his arrogance is one way to deal with his insecurity about many situations.Abel only seems to feel secure if he sees himself as superior to everybody else.This is the reason why he defines superiority based on the situation.Sometimes superiority is referred to as greater intelligence and in other cases as physical superiority.The way he uses superiority depends on the way it is easier for him to define himself as superior.

A beautiful, mystical story of adventure and love
The main male charachter has reason to leave civilization and travels far into South American jungles, meets with native tribes, and finds one which takes him in.They all seem happy with him until his curiosity gets the best of him, and he goes to a 'forbiden forest' so feared by this tribe he becomes ostricised for having been there.

In the second part of this book he befriends a mysterious girl who lives in the forest and seems more farie than human.He finds himself doing things for her which he would have never thought he would do for another person.

This is a clasic love story, intriguing, beautiful, and tragic.This was one of my first introductions to the classics of lliterature, and prompted me to find and read more of classic literature which has greatly enriched the scope of my reading experiences.

A beautifully told tale
Those of you who have read Rand Johnson's "Arcadia Falls - A Fable" will find interesting parallels here, albeit in a Victorian idiom, as Hudson presents a moving and mysterious romance against a backdrop of great natural beauty, in this case the South American jungle.

The green fields of WH Hudson
JB Priestly wrote a book about time ('Man and Time') and in it he referred to a WH Hudson novel called 'A Crystal Age'.His couple of paragraphs about 'A Crystal Age' stimulated my interest but nowhere could I find the novel he referred to.However, I did find 'Green Mansions' and I have read it several times.It is a beautiful novel with an undertone of darkness (is death the darkness that we all live with during the beauty of life?).Perhaps 'Green Mansions' disappointed me a little after triggering my romantic nerve.I did, however, keep exploring the writings of WH Hudson - 'Long Ago and Far Away', 'The Purple Land', 'Idle Days in Patagonia' and the wonderful 'A Shepherd's Life'.

On a recent trip to the States I visited a small specialist bookshop where it was suggested I might be able to get access to 'A Crystal Age' through abebooks.com.This was great advice.I have just finished reading 'A Crystal Age' and I concur with JB Priestley's assessment.'A Crystal Age' is worth the effort of pursuing - it is a surprising first-person utopian novel in which Hudson's love of nature does not render him oblivious to the fact that there are downsides in all worlds - all imaginable worlds.Just like the dark shadows in 'Green Mansions'.The end of 'A Crystal Age' is so surprising - I believe very few readers would see what is coming - I certainly didn't as I rushed on towards it.There is a certain illogic to the ending, but there is also something that haunts me continuously.I hope the illogic has not been a contributing factor in this novel's failure to be reprinted.But why else has it not been picked up - I am sure there is a market.

'A Crystal Age' is a stronger less romantic novel than 'Green Mansions', but it is also exceptional for many reasons.I don't hesitate in recommending 'Green Mansions' but I also urge readers to pursue 'A Crystal Age' - it is only a matter of time before I will be re-reading it myself.As for publishers who are looking for books from the past to reprint - give 'A Crystal Age' a look. ... Read more