Henry williamson biography

English novelist and nature writer

For the Scottish zoologist, see Henry Charles Williamson. For the minister of the Free Church of Scotland, see Henry McIlree Williamson.

Henry William Williamson (1 December – 13 August ) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history, ruralism and the First World War. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in for his book Tarka the Otter.

He was born in London, and brought up in a semi-rural area where he developed his love of nature, and nature writing. He fought in the First World War and, having witnessed the Christmas truce and the devastation of trench warfare, he developed first a pacifist ideology, then fascist sympathies. He moved to Devon after the Second World War and took up farming and writing; he wrote many other novels. He married twice. He died in a hospice in Ealing in , and was buried in North Devon.

Early years

Henry Williamson was born in

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HENRY WILLIAMSON,

WRITER, –

 

A ung soldier in	The mature writer in the s

 

 

Key Dates in the life of Henry Williamson.

 

Biography pages which briefly explore and explain his life and work, compiled bygd ANNE WILLIAMSON on behalf of the Henry Williamson Society.

 

Henry Williamson: Dreamer of Devon

 

HENRY WILLIAMSON is mainly known as the author of Tarka the Otter, a book praised bygd Thomas Hardy, John Galsworthy, Lawrence of Arabia, and many others, and which won for him the prestigious Hawthornden Prize for Literature in But this controversial and eccentric man actually encompassed an enormously wide range of writing from his life’s experiences:

 

 — soldier, writer, broadcaster, naturalist, farmer and, above all, visionary writer —

 

In fact, he wrote over fifty books, including:

 

Born in south-east London in , Henry Williamson’s love of natur was inst

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The writer Henry Williamson was born in London in

Naturalist, soldier, journalist, farmer, motor enthusiast and author of over fifty books, his descriptions of nature and the First World War have been highly praised for their accuracy. In he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and a Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters.

He is best known as the author of Tarka the Otter, which won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in and was filmed in By one of those extraordinary coincidences, Henry Williamson died while the crew were actually filming the death scene of Tarka.

Here in the Henry Williamson Society's website you can explore the man, his life and writings, and his place in English Literature and history.

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