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The Story of My Heart

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For the album, see Story of My Heart.

The Story of My Heart is a book first published in 1883 by English nature writer, essayist, and journalist Richard Jefferies.

The book has been described as a "spiritual autobiography" where Jefferies idealises the English countryside as a sort of utopia. The book and its themes have been compared to the transcendentalist movement.[1] Other Transcendentalist themes concerning rapturous union with Nature can be found in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and John Muir. The scholar Roger Ebbatson considers that the book's "speculative" spiritualism is emblematic of the decline of Christian belief in the more empirical Victorian era.[2]

Reception

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Critical reaction to the book was mixed. Jefferies' biographer Henry Stephens Salt wrote "there is no doubt that judged from a literary as well as from an intellectual standpoint, the most noteworthy of Jefferies' complete volumes is The Story of my Heart". Salt also compared the philosophy articulated in the book to those of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Henry David Thoreau.[3] Salt also noted, however, that The Story of My Heart sold poorly compared to the other books published by Jefferies in his lifetime.[4] Henry Miller praised The Story of My Heart in his book The Books In My Life (1952); Miller wrote that "The Story of My Heart is an inspirational work and in the whole of literature there are very few such works. It is a mighty utterance. An heroic utterance."[5] Ethel Mannin also praised The Story of My Heart. Mannin called The Story of My Heart "a lovely book", although she said she could not agree with the book's philosophy "in its entirety", she thought parts of it were "beautiful and true".[5][6] Conversely, D. H. Lawrence, in a 1912 letter to Edward Garnett, wrote "I don't like The Story of My Heart".[5] H. J. Massingham, who had expressed admiration for Jefferies' other works, dismissed The Story of My Heart as "a very bad and tawdry book."[5][6] A new edition of The Story of My Heart published in 2014 notes that the American conservationist Rachel Carson had two copies of the book at her bedside, but others found the work "barely comprehensible".[7]

References

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  1. ^ Corporaal, Marguérite; Evert Jan, van Leeuwen (2010). The Literary Utopias of Cultural Communities, 1790-1910. Rodopi. p. 131. ISBN 978-9042029996.
  2. ^ Ebbatson, Roger (2006). Heidegger's Bicycle: Interfering with Victorian Texts. Sussex Academic Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-1845191054.
  3. ^ Salt, Henry Stephens. Richard Jefferies: A Study. London, Swan Sonnenschein, 1894. (pgs. 67, 91,105)
  4. ^ Salt, Henry Stephens. Richard Jefferies: A Study. London, Swan Sonnenschein, 1894. (pg.109)
  5. ^ a b c d Looker, Samuel J., Richard Jefferies, Man of the Fields : a biography and letters. London: John Baker, 1965.(p.158-9).
  6. ^ a b Warren, C.H. "Richard Jefferies", Countrygoer magazine, Winter 1948 (pgs. 2-15)
  7. ^ "Nonfiction Book Review: The Story of My Heart". Publishers Weekly. 22 September 2014. Retrieved 4 October 2016. Jefferies, as Brooke notes, had his share of admirers and intense critics—Rachel Carson purportedly kept two copies of the book at her bedside; others deemed it "utterly chaotic" and "barely comprehensible."
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