Nature's engraver - Jenny Uglow

At the end of the 18th-century Britain fell in love with nature. Thomas Bewicks History of British Birds marked the moment, the first field-guide for ordinary people, illustrated by woodcuts of astonishing accuracy and beauty. But it was far more than that, for in the vivid vignettes scattered through the book Bewick drew the life of the country people of the North East - a world already vanishing under the threat of enclosures.In this superbly illustrated short life, Jenny Uglow tells the story of the farmers son from Tyneside who never courted fame yet influenced book illustration for a century to come. It is a story of violent change, radical politics, lost ways of life and the beauty of the wild - a journey into a past whose energy and power still haunt us today, and the beginning of our lasting obsession with the natural world.