George Edwin Fussell – författare

The two previous volumes in Dr. Fussell’s study of The Old English Farming Books have become the standard works of reference on the agricultural literature of England from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and their value for the study of the development of farming over this period is well recognized.With the appearance of the present volume, long-awaited by specialists in agricultural history, this study now reaches the nineteenth century. Dr. Fussell examines the books on agriculture published during the Napoleonic wars and the period immediately following. He gives a complete description of all the editions of these works printed during this period which are still to be found. The period saw a major increase in population, with a larger proportion employed in occupations that denied them any part in food production. These novel conditions promoted a greater interest in new methods of farming, since overseas competition was not effective in influencing the food producers, especially the grain producers who were still protected by the Corn Laws. The agricultural literature of the time provided the medium by which these new methods were disseminated.In the Appendices Dr. Fussell examines one of the main sources for the period, the publications of the Board of Agriculture on farming in England, Scotland and Wales (the‘County Reports’) and gives a valuable analysis of the individual contributions. There is a separate study of other works on farming issued by the Board.

Dr. Fussell’s theme is the evolution of the study of farming history, which as a branch of historiography is no more than two centuries old. He charts the development of interest in the history of rural life in England and Western Europe in the course of the nineteenth century, which has led to the acceptance of the subject as an important branch of historical research. This important work attempts to place the writers of agricultural history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries within their social context. It forms an integral continuation of Dr. Fussell's previous bibliographical studies, and provides an indispensable work of reference for students of the subject.

The development of landscape painting in England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has attracted considerable attention. The art of Gainsborough, Stubbs, Constable, Turner and the Norwich School is accepted as part of the British heritage, and the countryside as depicted by these artists is familiar not only to the specialist, but to most of us today. Nevertheless, this was an artificial landscape, one that had been created by the improving farmers of the period. The changes in the British landscape as a result of the new farming methods introduced by the agricultural revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the theme of Dr. Fussell's study. The author examines the introduction of the new methods of farming in the seventeenth century, the growing adoption of the new systems that led to the numerous Enclosure Acts of the eighteenth century, the consequent transformation of the countryside, and the growth of demand for landscape painting among the nobility and richer landowners.

This selection of sixteen studies by Dr Fussell covers English topography and farming over a period of three hundred years, from the Tudor era to the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The first study reprinted here is a 56-page bibliographical guide to works on English travel and topography from 1500-1815, published over forty years ago and now recognized as a basic reference book. Its republication in this volume will be welcomed by bibliographers and collectors alike. This is complemented by fourteen of the author's articles on the farming and landscape of England, published over a period of forty years, covering the changes in farming practice in this country during the Tudor and Stuart periods. and the agricultural revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This volume thus presents a unique selection of work on the development of English farming, and the consequent change in the landscape, over the most significant period in the history of British agriculture, a period that led to the creation of both the landscape and the farming systems that are still with us to-day.

This fourth volume of Dr. Fussell’s bibliography covers the period from the foundation of the Royal Agricultural Society of England to the agricultural repercussions of the abolition of the Corn Laws. The twenty years featured in this volume saw the publication of an enormous number of farming tracts and studies, reflecting the spread of the agricultural revolution across England and the final creation of the present-day system of agricultural production.