"He was a pagan, a pantheist, a worshipper of earth and sea, and of the great sun 'burning in the heaven'; he yearned for a free, natural, fearless life of physical health and spiritual exaltation, and for a death in harmony with the life that preceded it.." So is the writer Richard Jefferies (1848-1887) described by Henry S. Salt in this classic study first published in 1894. The book sparked some controversy at the time, as Salt - a campaigner for animal rights, vegetarianism and socialism - used it to claim Jefferies for one of his own, highlighting the social radicalism and nature-based...

Henry Stephens Salt (1851-1939) was an English writer and social reformer whose work brought praise from many quarters. Unlike many zealots for a cause, Henry Salt always demonstrated great logic and wit to show the folly of those who opposed progress. In this, he was not unlike his great contemporary, the playwright Bernard Shaw. Salt wrote studies of Thoreau, Percy Shelley and Richard Jefferies the writer and naturalist. Wherever Henry Salt is remembered today it is largely for his work on animal rights, not least in his classic Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress....