Wilder Wales

David Lloyd Owen lives with his family on their farm in Llangoedmor, Ceredigion, where he reads, cooks, writes and watches the seasons while his wife organises equestrian events. He spent several years watching choughs near Llangrannog for his doctoral research at Jesus College, Oxford. He has also spent time watching choughs and other birds in Qinghai, Ladakh, Zanskar and the Hunza Valley. After some years in the City and consultancy, he founded Envisager, advising Governments, companies and banks about water markets and policies. He has published eight books on water including The Sound of Thirst.

Wales has always been that other place, a country viewed from across an uncertain border.A land of mountains, of fast-flowing rivers, of legend and stories about a people who spoke another language, held tight to their own way and rhythm of life.For the early travellers into Wales it was a place to marvel at, a place of legends, a place to escape.David Lloyd Owen has produced a stunning compendium of a wilder Wales that pays tribute to the writers who first travelled the mountain and valleys of a country so close to the modern world of the industrial revolution but again so far away.Including many of the seminal accounts of adventure and travel in Wales including Thomas Pennat, George Borrow, and others, Wilder Wales highlights the astonishing transformation of a country from a poor rural backwater to the crucible of the industrial revolution and offers readers an insight into the ways in which outsiders viewed the land and its people.A unique account of a place and people.