Bevis

A little about the story

Bevis is a farm boy in the English countryside who turns every day into an adventure. With his friend Mark, he builds a raft, makes a canoe, explores the big lake as if it were an unknown sea, fights imaginary wars, swims and sails, and even builds his own gun.

Richard Jefferies was one of the great English nature writers, and this long, rich book captures the freedom, inventiveness and wild imagination of childhood in a vanished countryside.

Things You May Not Know About Bevis

• Subtitled The Story of a Boy.
• Based on Jefferies's own childhood at Coate Farm near Swindon, where the lake is now Coate Water.
• Admired by later writers, including Arthur Ransome, who loved its picture of children playing at exploration.