W. H. Hudson's Green Mansions, the basis of movies, comics, and television shows, is "a romance of the tropical forest." The story gains poignance because the setting Hudson, a naturalist, describes vividly is vanishing.

Through the story of one man, Caleb Bawcombe, a shepherd whose flocks graze the Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset borders, we meet men and women of humble birth, poachers, gypsies, farmers and labourers striving to survive on the land. As we read, the cumulative affect of their stories becomes much more than a record of rural life.