Hampshire Days was published by Longmans, Green in 1903. Where Nature in Downland focused on the open chalk grasslands of Sussex, this book explores the more varied Hampshire landscape: the heaths around Selborne (where Gilbert White had written a century earlier), the river valleys, the remnants of the New Forest, and the agricultural country between.
Hudson is conscious of following White — The Natural History of Selborne is the founding text of English nature writing — but his method is different: less systematic, more ruminative, more willing to follow observation into philosophical reflection. A chapter that begins with the behavior of herons may end with meditation on the nature of wildness; an account of wildflowers leads to reflection on the relationship between beauty and utility in nature.
The Hampshire landscape provides different material from the Downs: more trees, more water, more enclosure and domestic scenery. Hudson responds to this variety with characteristic attentiveness — the quality of light in wooded country, the behavior of riverside birds, the ecology of heath and common — and produces a book that complements rather than repeats his earlier work.
Collecting Hampshire Days
First edition (Longmans, Green, London, 1903): Cloth, illustrated.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $60–$150
- Very good: $25–$60