Days of Wonder: Contributions to the Daily Express, 1966-1971

Henry Williamson remains best known for his classic nature stories, Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon. The Daily Express helped to launch his literary career in the early 1920s, and also gave him much support during the latter half of the 1960s, which represented a late flowering of Williamson's long relationship with the Express. The 38 articles collected here for the first time were published in the Daily Express between 1966 and 1971. Subjects range from graphic descriptions of the battles of the Somme and Vimy Ridge, written on the fiftieth anniversaries of the battles, to essays on ecology and conservation – in particular, in support of banning the hunting of otters, and a trilogy of essays on the occasion of a congress of the World Wildlife Fund held in London in 1970. The late Richard Richardson, a talented wildlife artist whom Williamson had known in Norfolk, was commissioned by the Express to illustrate several articles, and his attractive drawings are also reproduced here.