William Henry Hudson

William Henry Hudson 1841-1922, English author and naturalist, b. Buenos Aires of American parents. He spent his childhood on the pampas but developed a heart condition and finally emigrated to England in 1870. Hudson was a sensitive observer of nature, particularly of birds. In his books he describes plants and animals in a highly personal manner with great force and beauty. His best-known work, Green Mansions (1904), is a romance set in a South American jungle. Included among his other works are The Purple Land (1885), The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), A Shepherd's Life (1910), Far Away and Long Ago (1918), and A Hind in Richmond Park (1922).

Bibliography: See A. D. Ronner, W. H. Hudson: The Man, the Novelist, the Naturalist (1986); bibliography by G. F. Wilson (1922, repr. 1968).

Hudson, W. H. ( William Henry Hudson) (1841–1922), was born near Buenos Aires. He came to London in 1874 where he remained, often in poverty, for the rest of his life. His novel Green Mansions (1904) is probably his best-known book. His remarkable A Shepherd's Life (1910) describes Caleb Bawcombe, a Wiltshire shepherd, who lives night and day, through all the seasons, with his sheep and his dogs among the people and the wild life of the downs. His other works include The Purple Land (1885), a series of strange and vivid stories set in South America; The Crystal Age (1887), an account of a Utopian land where the sex impulse has burned out and society is therefore at last stable and at peace; Argentine Ornithology (1888), a standard work of which Hudson was part-author; The Naturalist in La Plata (1892); British Birds (1895); Adventures among Birds (1913); Far Away and Long Ago (1918); and Birds of La Plata (1920), another standard work.