Books with author W. H. Hudson

The novel tells the story of Richard Lamb, a young Englishman who marries a teenage Argentinian girl, Paquita, without asking her father's permission, and is forced to flee to Montevideo, Uruguay with his bride. Lamb leaves his young wife with a relative while he sets off for eastern Uruguay to find work for himself. He soon becomes embroiled in adventures with the Uruguayan gauchos and romances with local women. Lamb unknowingly helps a rebel guerrilla general, Santa Coloma, escape from prison and joins his cause. However, the rebels are defeated in battle and Lamb has to flee in disguise. He helps Demetria, the daughter of an old rebel leader, escape from her persecutors and returns to Montevideo. Lamb, Paquita, Demetria and Santa Coloma evade their government pursuers by slipping away on a boat bound for Buenos Aires. Here the novel ends, but in the opening paragraphs, Lamb had already informed the reader that after the events of the story he was captured by Paquita's father and thrown into prison for three years, during which time Paquita herself died of grief. Ernest Hemingway famously referred to Hudson's book in his novel The Sun Also Rises: Then there was another thing. He had been reading W.H. Hudson. That sounds like an innocent occupation, but Cohn had read and reread The Purple Land. The Purple Land is a very sinister book if read too late in life. It recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfect English gentleman in an intensely romantic land, the scenery of which is very well described. For a man to take it at thirty-four as a guide-book to what life holds is about as safe as it would be for a man of the same age to enter Wall Street direct from a French convent, equipped with a complete set of the more practical Alger books.

W.H. Hudson, in full William Henry Hudson (born August 4, 1841, near Buenos Aires, Argentina—died August 18, 1922, London, England), British author, naturalist, and ornithologist, best known for his exotic romances, especially Green Mansions. Hudson’s parents were originally New Englanders who took up sheep farming in Argentina. He spent his childhood—lovingly recalled in Far Away and Long Ago (1918)—freely roaming the pampas, studying the plant and animal life, and observing both natural and human dramas on what was then a lawless frontier. After an illness at 15 permanently affected his health, he became introspective and studious; his reading of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, which confirmed his own observations of nature, had a particularly strong impact. After his parents’ death, he led a wandering life. Little is known of this period or of his early years in England, where he settled in 1869 (and was naturalized in 1900). Poverty and ill-health may have occasioned his marriage in 1876 to a woman much older than himself. He and his wife lived precariously on the proceeds of two boardinghouses, until she inherited a house in the Bayswater section of London, where Hudson spent the rest of his life. His early books, romances with a South American setting, are weak in characterization but imbued with a brooding sense of nature’s power. Although Hudson’s reputation now rests chiefly on these novels, when published they attracted little attention. The first, The Purple Land that England Lost, 2 vol. (1885), was followed by several long short stories, collected in 1902 as El Ombú. His last romance, Green Mansions (1904), is the strange love story of Rima, a mysterious creature of the forest, half bird and half human. Rima, the best known of Hudson’s characters, is the subject of the statue by Jacob Epstein in the bird sanctuary erected in Hudson’s memory in Hyde Park, London, in 1925. The romances secured Hudson the friendship of many English men of letters, among them Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Edward Garnett, and George Gissing. His books on ornithological studies (Argentine Ornithology, 1888–89; British Birds, 1895; etc.) brought recognition from the statesman Sir Edward Grey, who procured him a state pension in 1901. He finally achieved fame with his books on the English countryside—Afoot in England (1909), A Shepherd’s Life (1910), Dead Man’s Plack (1920), A Traveller in Little Things (1921), and A Hind in Richmond Park (1922). By their detailed, imaginative descriptions, conveying the sensations of one who accepted nature in all its aspects, these works did much to foster the “back-to-nature” movement of the 1920s and 1930s but were subsequently little read.

The Purple Land tells the story of Richard Lamb, a young Englishman who marries a teenage Argentinian girl, Paquita, without asking her father's permission, and is forced to flee to Montevideo, Uruguay with his bride. Lamb leaves his young wife with a relative while he sets off for eastern Uruguay to find work for himself. He soon becomes embroiled in adventures with the Uruguayan gauchos and romances with local women. Lamb unknowingly helps a rebel guerrilla general, Santa Coloma, escape from prison and joins his cause. However, the rebels are defeated in battle and Lamb has to flee in disguise. He helps Demetria, the daughter of an old rebel leader, escape from her persecutors and returns to Montevideo. Lamb, Paquita, Demetria and Santa Coloma evade their government pursuers by slipping away on a boat bound for Buenos Aires. Here the novel ends, but in the opening paragraphs, Lamb had already informed the reader that after the events of the story he was captured by Paquita's father and thrown into prison for three years, during which time Paquita herself died of grief. Ernest Hemingway famously referred to Hudson's book in his novel The Sun Also Rises: Then there was another thing. He had been reading W.H. Hudson. That sounds like an innocent occupation, but Cohn had read and reread The Purple Land. The Purple Land is a very sinister book if read too late in life. It recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfect English gentleman in an intensely romantic land, the scenery of which is very well described. For a man to take it at thirty-four as a guide-book to what life holds is about as safe as it would be for a man of the same age to enter Wall Street direct from a French convent, equipped with a complete set of the more practical Alger books. Green Mansions, novel by W.H. Hudson, published in 1904. An exotic romance set in the jungles of South America, the story is narrated by a man named Abel who as a young man had lived among the aboriginal people. He tells of Rima, a strange birdlike woman with whom he falls in love. A creature of the forest, Rima is eventually destroyed by the superstitious Aboriginals.

Green Mansions, novel by W.H. Hudson, published in 1904. An exotic romance set in the jungles of South America, the story is narrated by a man named Abel who as a young man had lived among the aboriginal people. He tells of Rima, a strange birdlike woman with whom he falls in love. A creature of the forest, Rima is eventually destroyed by the superstitious Aboriginals.

"Green Mansions" by W. H. Hudson tells the story of Abel, a young wealthy Venezuelan who flees Caracas for political reasons and soon finds himself in the uncharted forests of the Guyana jungle. There Abel meets the mysterious Rima the Bird Girl. As Abel chases after his secret admirer, she leads him further and further into her invisible trap of love. Then the secret begins to unfold. The language of "Green Mansions" is exquisite, and the book will be especially intriguing to anyone with an interest in nature, for it is not only a wonderful love story, but also a vivid description of the Venezuelan rain forest and its indigenous people. Readers who have read Rand Johnson's "Arcadia Falls - A Fable" will find interesting parallels here, as Hudson presents a moving and mysterious romance against a backdrop of great natural beauty. Books as rich as "Green Mansions" need to be savored, like good wine. The story flows naturally and poetically. Though written over a hundred years ago, it doesn't seem at all dated. The plot and the pacing are superb, and Hudson's storytelling is particularly fascinating. Written with rich and moving prose, "Green Mansions" is a truly absorbing book.

Seen through the eyes of a young boy, the Argentine pampas was a land of freedom and endless exploration. In scintillating detail Hudson recalls its wild artichoke thistles, temporary lakes, spectacular storms, unforgettable trees and its pulsating bird life. He also captures the idiocyncracies of its human inhabitants and their multiracial households: Englishmen manufacturing sheep's cheese, obsessive breeders of piebald horses and long, companionable evenings filled with extempore ballads. Underlying it all are the violent realities of the times - tortured slaves, murderous, macho gauchos delighting in the agonising ritual of animal slaughter and the simple ever-present threat of nineteenth-century mortality.

"The Land's End: A Naturalist's Impressions In West Cornwall, Illustrated" by W. H. Hudson. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.