TARKA THE OTTER

THE DARK LANTERN

Richard Maddison, a clerk in the City of London, struggles on a few shillings a week. He meets Hetty Turney, daughter of a prosperous city merchant and falls in love, but he is not the kind of man her father wants her to marry. Will he ever be able to win her hand?

DONKEY BOY

This is volume 2 of Williamson's acclaimed novel sequence: 'A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight'. It tells of Richard Maddison's first-born son Phillip, nicknamed 'donkey boy' because his life was saved in infancy by being fed with ass's milk. The boy grows up in the Edwardian era, something of a misfit, at odds with his father.

SALAR THE SALMON

The story of Salar and his migration through the rivers of Devon leaves us with a vivid unsentimental picture of how both people and wildlife rely on a river and its estuary.

THE STORY OF A NORFOLK FARM

Henry Williamson, best known as the author of 'Tarka the Otter' (954), tells of his struggles to renovate Old Hall Farm at Stiffkey, which he bought in a derelict state in 1936. He hasn't the slightest idea of how to go about the job of farming and the stories of his hopelessness, told with dry humour, are offset by a fascinating account of how things gradually begin to work.