Editing Richard Jefferies (section)

===Early life===

John Richard Jefferies (he used the first name only during his childhood)<ref name="Thomas 1909, 29">Thomas (1909), p. 29.</ref> was born at [[Coate Water Country Park|Coate]] in the parish of [[Chiseldon]], near [[Swindon]], Wiltshire, the son of a farmer, James Luckett Jefferies (1816–1896).<ref name="Rossabi 2004">Rossabi (2004).</ref> His birthplace and home is now a museum open to the public. James Jefferies had the farm from his father, John Jefferies, who had been a printer in London before returning to Swindon to run the family mill and bakery. Richard's mother, Elizabeth Gyde (1817–1895), always called Betsy, was the daughter of John Jefferies's binder and manager.<ref name="Rossabi 2004"/>

These relationships are mirrored in the characters of Jefferies's late novel ''Amaryllis at the Fair'' (1887); and the portraits of the family in the novel tally with external accounts of the Jefferies.<ref>Besant (1905), 5; pp. 14–16; Thomas (1909), pp. 24–5; 28–29; Rossabi (2004).</ref> James Jefferies, like Iden in ''Amaryllis'', was devoted to his garden, while struggling to make a financial success of the farm. The garden, lovingly recalled in ''Wood Magic''  and ''Amaryllis'', also made a strong impression on the memories of those who knew the Jefferies at the time.<ref>Besant (1905), 4; Thomas (1909), pp. 29–30.</ref> Betsy, like Iden's wife, seems to have been dissatisfied with life on the farm:<ref name="Thomas 1909, 29"/> "a town-bred woman with a beautiful face and a pleasure-loving soul, kind and generous to a fault, but unsuited to a country life." The farm was very small, with {{convert|39|acre|m2}} of pasture; and a mortgage of £1500 would later begin a slide into debt for James Jefferies, who lost the farm in 1877 and became a jobbing gardener.<ref>Rossabi (2004)</ref> But these difficulties were less evident in Richard's childhood. The situation was much as in ''After London'' (1885), where the farming and gardening Baron is again based on James Jefferies:<ref>''After London'', Chapter 4, cited in Thomas (1909), p. 47.</ref> "The whole place was thus falling to decay, while at the same time it seemed to be flowing with milk and honey". One part of the Jefferies family is strikingly missing from the books. In ''Wood Magic'', ''Bevis'' and ''Amaryllis'', the hero (or heroine) has no siblings; only ''After London'' gives the main character brothers and depicts the imperfect sympathy between them. James and Elizabeth's first child, Ellen, had died young; but Richard had two younger brothers and a younger sister.<ref name="Thomas 1909, 29"/>

Jefferies spent several of his earlier years, between the ages of four and nine, with his aunt and uncle, the Harrilds, in [[Sydenham, London|Sydenham]], where he attended a private school, returning to Coate in the holidays.<ref>Besant (1905), pp. 27–28; Thomas (1909), p. 39; Rossabi (2004).</ref> His uncle, Thomas Harrild, was a son of the printing innovator [[Robert Harrild]]. Jefferies kept a close friendship with Mrs. Ellen Harrild (nee Gyde) and his letters to her are an important source for biographers. At Coate, he spent most of his time in the countryside; and much of what he narrates of Bevis is true of himself. His father had taken him shooting when he was eight; and already at nine he had shot a rabbit. He was soon spending much of his time shooting, snaring rabbits, and fishing.<ref>Thomas (1909), p. 39; pp. 41–42; Looker and Porteous (1965), p. 16.</ref> He also, like Bevis, added home-made rigging to a boat to sail on the reservoir; and he is said to have built his own canoe, like the hero of ''After London''.<ref>Besant (1905), pp. 29–30; Thomas (1909), p. 40.</ref> At the same time, he became a keen reader: favourite books included Homer's ''[[Odyssey]]'', [[Reliques of Ancient English Poetry|Percy's ''Reliques'']], ''[[Don Quixote]]'' and [[James Fenimore Cooper]]'s ''[[The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea|The Pathfinder]]'', which served as a model for mock battles fought on a field between the farm and the reservoir.<ref>Thomas (1909), pp. 45–46.</ref>

In November 1864, at the age of sixteen, he and a cousin, [[James Cox (labourer)|James Cox]], ran off to France, intending to walk to Russia. (Cox, slightly older than Jefferies, worked for the [[Great Western Railway]] and had a little money saved.) After crossing the channel, they soon found that their schoolboy French was insufficient and returned to England. Before they reached Swindon, they noticed an advertisement for cheap crossings from [[Liverpool]] to America and set off in this new direction. The tickets however, did not include the cost of food; and the boys were forced to return to Swindon after an attempt to pawn their watches had drawn the attention of the police.<ref>Besant (1905), pp. 50–53; Thomas (1909), pp. 46–47.</ref>

[[File:Richardjefferies00thom 0107.jpg|thumb|left|Jefferies in 1872]]Jefferies left school at fifteen and at first continued his habits of solitary wanderings about the local countryside. He dressed carelessly and allowed his hair to grow down to his collar. This, with his "bent form and long, rapid stride made him an object of wonder in the town of Swindon. But he was perfectly unconscious of this, or indifferent to it."<ref>Besant (1905), p. 57; Thomas (1909), pp. 56; 65; Looker and Porteous (1965), 54.</ref> He helped little on the farm (his only enthusiasm was for chopping and splitting wood) and was regarded as something of an idler. The gun that he always carried drew the suspicion of local landowners – one said, "That young Jefferies is not the sort of fellow you want hanging about in your covers".<ref>Thomas (1909), pp. 47–49.</ref> Finally, early in 1866, he started work as a newspaper reporter for the ''[[Gazette and Herald|North Wiltshire Herald]]''.<ref>Thomas (1909), p. 50.</ref> For several years he worked as a reporter, contributing not only to the ''North Wiltshire Herald'', but also to the ''Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard'' and to the ''[[Swindon Advertiser]]''.<ref>Besant (1905), 60; Thomas (1909), 74.</ref> The editor of the ''Swindon Advertiser'', William Morris, an antiquarian and local historian, lent Jefferies books and encouraged his early writing attempts.<ref>Besant (1905), pp. 54–55; 60; Thomas (1909), p. 55.</ref> Jefferies himself developed an antiquarian interest in the countryside: he published articles on local history in the ''North Wiltshire Herald'' and was the first to notice a stone circle near Coate Farm. He was also spending much time on the downs, particularly at the iron age hill fort, [[Liddington Castle]], where he would lie on the grass, ecstatically feeling and seeking a connection with the natural world.<ref>Thomas (1909), 20; pp. 57–58; Rossabi (2004).</ref> In September 1867 and July 1868 he was very ill. In retrospect the illnesses were clearly the first symptoms of the tuberculosis that would kill him. He emerged from them weakened and very thin – "My legs are as thin as a grasshopper's", he wrote to his aunt. Illness also prompted some reconsideration of his own character: he was going to be "not swell but stylish" in future, since people set so much store by appearance.<ref>Besant (1905), pp. 70–75; Thomas (1909), pp. 61–63; Rossabi (2004).</ref>

He was now actively pursuing a career as a writer, writing a history of the Goddards, a local family, and ''Reporting, Editing, and Authorship: Practical Hints for Beginners in Literature'' (1873), in which he shared the fruits of his brief experience as a local reporter. Meanwhile the novels he was writing could not find a publisher.<ref>Thomas (1909), pp. 74–78.</ref> What national attention he attracted was instead from a series of letters to ''[[The Times]]'' on the Wiltshire agricultural labourer, published in November 1872. The letters, like his other writings from this period, reflect the Conservative outlook of his upbringing.<ref>Thomas (1909), pp. 80–83.</ref>

In 1874, the year of his first published novel, ''The Scarlet Shawl'', he married Jessie Baden (1853–1926), the daughter of a nearby farmer. After living for a few months at Coate Farm, the couple moved to a house in Swindon in 1875 (its current address is 93 Victoria Road); and their first child, Richard Harold Jefferies, was born there on 3 May.<ref>Thomas (1909), p. 96; Rossabi (2004).</ref>