Hampshire: through writers' eyes

The rounded chalk hills of Hampshire have protected not only the ancient capital of Anglo-Saxon England but also the two-thousand-year-old arsenal-harbor of the Royal Navy. It was in Hampshire that the novel reached its fullest expression through the native genius of Jane Austen, where fly-fishing and cricket were first organized, and where D-day was launched. But not the least of its claims is as the birthplace of nature writing, where Gilbert White first opened up a universe of observation to the world, by confining himself to the infinite details of his Hampshire parish of Selborne. This tradition was furthered in the county by W H Hudson, and reached its apogee with the night walks of the poet Edward Thomas before his early death in the trenches. If Hampshire is revealed to be a crystallization of all quiet virtues of England, we also get to delight in the affectionate mocking attention of Beryl Bainbridge, P G Wodehouse and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
A selection of writings about the English county of Hampshire, bastion of Englishness. With selections from Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Conan Doyle, P G Wodehouse, RL Stevenson, Edward Thomas, Olivia Manning and many more.
Those who know the downs and chalk streams of Hampshire are quietly fortunate but rarely boastful. So it is fascinating to rediscover this home county, on the eastern edge of Wessex, as a place of extraordinary richness.