Lake Country Sketches (Glasgow, 1903)

The book is dedicated to Edith who Hardwicke says is ‘a true lover of Nature and the English Lakes’.  On its publication, one reviewer commented that the volume:

Will be welcome to all lovers of a land as beautiful as it is interesting.  In discussing pleasantly on its scenery and its worthies, the author proves, if it were needed, how much may be seen and learnt in our own country.  The choicest parts of Lakeland—the Heads of Windermere and Ullswater, all Grasmere and Derwentwater—afford combinations of fell and crag, of water and woodland, which, though not so grand as Alpine lakes, possess a distinctive charm of their own…. Canon Rawnsley has introduced us to Lakeland in a garb not generally familiar.  Its summer visitors are many, but few have seen it in its Winter vestment of snow.  Yet it is never more beautiful than when it seems, for a brief season, almost to compete with the higher Alps.   

Contents

*Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmoreland (pp. 1-58)

With the Black-Headed Gulls in Cumberland (pp. 59-68)

At the Grasmere Play (pp. 69-85)

James Cropper of Ellergreen (pp. 86-93)

A Day with Roman and Norse (pp. 94-108)

Arctic Splendours at the English Lakes (pp. 109-115)

*William Pearson of Borderside (pp. 116-149)

*Joseph Hawell, a Skiddaw Shepherd (pp. 150-165)

A Famous Yew Tree (pp. 166-175)

Lodore after Storm (pp. 176-188)

A North Country Nimrod (pp. 189-206)

A Winter Day on Derwentwater (pp. 207-217)

Wordsworth at Cockermouth (pp. 218-226)

Mountain Silence and Valley Song (pp. 227-234)

(* Published previously)