''Rural Rides'' is the book for which the English
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
,
agriculturist and political reformer
William Cobbett is best known.
At the time of writing in the early 1820s, Cobbett was a radical anti-
Corn Law
The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They were ...
campaigner, newly returned to England from a spell of self-imposed political exile in the United States.
Cobbett disapproved of proposals for remedies for agricultural distress suggested in Parliament in 1821. He made up his mind to see rural conditions for himself, and to "enforce by actual observation of rural conditions" the statements he had made in answer to the arguments of the landlords before the Parliamentary Agricultural Committee.
He embarked on a series of journeys by horseback through the countryside of
Southeast England and the
English Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the ...
. He wrote down what he saw from the points of view both of a farmer and a social reformer. The result documents the early 19th-century countryside and its people as well as giving free vent to Cobbett's opinions.
He first published his observations in serial form in the ''
Political Register'', between 1822 and 1826. Four rides – from 1822, 1823, 1825 and 1826 – were first published in book form in two volumes in 1830. In 1853, his son James published an expanded edition, including rides from 1821, as well as his father's 1830-32 political tours to the Midlands, North and Scotland.
Editions
*Penguin Classics; new edition (27 Sep 2001) . Introduction and notes by
Ian Dyck.
*Constable; abridged hardcover edition (Sep 1982) . Introduction by
E. R. Chamberlain.
*J. M. Dent & Sons; Everyman's Library (1912), reprinted 1924 and 1953, ASIN B00085HPA0. Introduction by
Edward Thomas.
*''Rural Rides in the Counties of Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire...''. Original publication by Cobbett, 1830 and 1853.
External links
*
William Cobbett - Rural Rides - UK Parliament - Living HeritageRural Rides, volume 1
– complete text from the Internet Archive
Rural Rides, volume 2
– complete text from the Internet Archive
*
*An edited (censored) text o
''Rural Rides''
on ''A Vision of Britain through Time'', with links to the places mentioned by Cobbett.
at Geography Department, Portsmouth University.
{{Authority control
Books about cultural geography
Political books
Agriculture books
1830 non-fiction books
British books
Books about England