There has, in recent years, been an explosion of writing about place, landscape and the natural world. But within this, women's voices have remained in the minority.

This anthology gathers the voices of women from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries whose subject is the natural world in Britain, Ireland and the outlying islands of our archipelago. Alongside the traditional forms of the travelogue, the walking guide, books on birds, plants and wildlife, Women on Nature embraces alternative modes of seeing and recording that turn the genre on its head. Katharine Norbury has sifted though the pages of women's fiction, poetry, biography, gardening diaries and recipe books and garnered accounts from artists, farmers, theologians and natural scientists to demonstrate the multitudinous ways in which women have observed the world about them.

From the fourteenth-century spiritual revelations of Julian of Norwich to the seventeenth-century travel journals of Celia Fiennes, and including a host of twenty-first-century voices such Sarah Evans, Sinead Gleeson, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay, Rachel Lichtenstein, Amy Liptrot, Helen Mort, Anita Sethi and more, Women on Nature presents a fresh vision of the natural world and is of unique importance in terms of women's history and the history of writing about nature.

This landmark, first-of-its-kind anthology presents a groundbreaking perspective on women's writing about the natural world

About the Author

Katharine Norbury is the author of The Fish Ladder which was shortlisted for the 2016 Wainwright Prize, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and was a Book of the Year in the Guardian, Telegraph and Observer newspapers. She was the Observer's Rising Star in Non-fiction in 2016, and has contributed to the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Washington Post, Lonely Planet magazine and Caught by the River. Based in London.

@kjnorbury

Reviews

• 'A fine, rare and landmark collection of nature writing, both prose and poetry, all by female writers' Deborah Warner, The Times
• 'This collection not only helps to illuminate historical and contemporary voices, but also makes you reconsider the meaning of the nature writing genre' Jane Adams, BBC Wildlife
• 'The writing is sure and precise. It is definite, luminous and strong' Julie Brominicks, BBC Countryfile
• 'This gorgeous doorstop of a book ... Its sheer scope is dazzling ... Katharine Norbury has done an impeccable job and a huge service to anyone wanting to stroll off the beaten track' Caught by the River
  
• 'I've been waiting eagerly for this. And now it's here! A veritable tumble through brilliance spanning centuries and uniting great writers' Rob Cowen
• 'Women on Nature is a boundary breaker. It seeks to bring down barriers on gender, geopolitics, genre, or those between humans and nature and within nature itself - the wild versus the cultivated and domesticated' Daily Post
• 'An expansive and brilliant anthology of writing by women about place, landscape and the natural world in the east Atlantic archipelago. Featuring Nan Shepherd and so many of our favourite nature writers - a must read!' Nan Shepherd Prize Book of the Week
• 'Refreshing and evocative, Women on Nature reveals the need to mend the frayed places between nature and humankind, and rather than record the natural world's dying, act together on behalf of its thriving' Kristine Morris, Foreword
• 'An entertaining and eclectic anthology ... For readers in search of a new take on the genre, this is a great place to start' Publishers Weekly

Book Information
ISBN 9781800181410
Author Katharine Norbury
Format Paperback
Page Count 496
Imprint Unbound
Publisher Unbound