The Farmer's Year: A Calendar Of English Husbandry

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From the front-inside dustcover:

“In the early 1930s Clare Leighton began work on twelve wood engravings portraying traditional farming practices. England was in the grip of the Great Depression and with increased mechanisation, life on the land was changing.

Clare Leighton was already well established as a powerful and innovative engraver, but this time she was persuaded to write a text to complement her prints. This proved a watershed and no other book involved her so intensely. She engraved, wrote and designed the book, producing stunning chapter openers and tail pieces. The result was this unusual and immensely successful record of the toil and triumphs of farm labourers before the demands of the Second World War were to change the face of rural Britain.

The Farmer’s Year was first published in Britain and the USA in November 1933 and by February 1934 had run to three impressions. The book was launched to great critical acclaim. Frank Rutter, Art Critic of The Sunday Times wrote: “The sincerity of her work is as unmistakable as to its excellence.” Eric Gill commented: “…no one in our time has succeeded better in presenting the noble massiveness and breadth of the life on the earth on a scale so grand.”

The Farmer’s Year has not been reprinted since 1934, making the present re-issue long overdue. This [1992] edition has a new afterword by Patricia Jaffé.

Large Format: 285mm x 363mm x 15mm .