Customer Reviews

Rural Rides (Penguin Classics)

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Rural Rides is today William Cobbett's best known work, and new editions are available. Even if you don't know who William Cobbett was, you may be simply attracted to this book's title, which was why I picked it up nearly a decade ago and have been re-reading parts of it ever since. Who doesn't like a rural ride?

You are about to discover a treasure if: you love English history; you like to read travelogues or journals even if written long ago; you enjoy observing things in the landscape, including soil conditions and what is growing there. And, if you believe that reading journals is a superb pathway to the past, this is a perfect selection for you.

Cobbett was an English radical social and political commentator (writer and speaker) of the latter 18th century and early 19th century. He was born in 1762 and died in 1835. As an example of his forthrightness, he was imprisoned in England for speaking out against the use of flogging in the army, in which he had served. He also spent many years in the United States.

Cobbett was the local food advocate of his time, keeping up on the latest soil science and imparting his first-hand experience on the best growing practices. He published Cottage Economy in the 1820's, the same period of these travels. He founded the journal Political Register. He was very well known in England and America.

I have the two-volume Everyman's Library edition, without a date of its publication, but certainly early 20th century. These two small, green cloth volumes have been a joy to have and to read.

Rural Rides was more than a travelogue, of course. It was Cobbett's medium for commenting on society, nature and science. He was obsessed with the improvement of agricultural practices, and he was thrilled with natural phenomena. I recently reread a passage describing how, while riding on horseback with a friend, he saw ahead in the distance what he thought was a cloud of dust apparently arising from the passage of a stagecoach on an intersecting road, only to discover upon getting closer that it was a cloud - fog - on a sunny day, passing through a low point in the road. You will find plenty of these sorts of things, and observances upon the growing of turnips, corn and many crops, the types of soil in a particular town, what is growing there, the hospitality of people along the way, their political prejudices, remembrances of America for comparisons, horses, bad beds, good pubs, wild birds, cattle, dogs, hares, etc. etc. Each passage is given a place and a date. I sometimes leaf through to find a passage for the current date.

It is helpful to know something of the history of the time. Otherwise you will have to gloss over his mention of such things as "the Pitt-system" that to Cobbett resulted in social decay and destruction of the rural economy. Not current on English political history? You can still enjoy the wealth of such passages as this: "Nov. 11, 1822: Uphusband once more, and, for the sixth time this year, over the North Hampshire Hills, which, notwithstanding their everlasting flints, I like very much. As you ride along, even in a green lane, the horses' feet make a noise like hammering. It seems as if you were riding on a mass of iron. Yet the soil is good, and bears some of the best wheat in England. All these high and, indeed, all chalky lands, are excellent for sheep...this pasture is on the very tops of these lofty hills, from which you can see the Isle of Wight."

I hope you will find a copy that suits you and enjoy it as I have. Rural Rides is one of my great treasures and I never tire of reading it. I especially enjoy the passages describing places I have visited in England. It is one of the true marvels in this world that so many of the places Cobbett describes are much as they were, a testament to England's passion and determination to preserve its countryside.