Mad Shepherds

First published in 1910, Mad
Shepherds, subtitled and other human stories, is an extraordinary
book. The author, Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, was a philosopher, educator, writer
and Unitarian minister, who came to live in the Vale of Evesham in the northern
Cotswolds at the end of the nineteenth century. Mad Shepherds is a
lightly fictionalised account of life in the village, which Jacks calls
Deadborough, and is also a highly idiosyncratic and authentic exploration of
rural life and culture. The protagonist is Snarley Bob, a shepherd, whose gruff
and often rude outpourings conceal a dark wit and intelligence. As Jacks writes,
'Mystic, star-gazer, dabbler in the black or blackish arts, he seemed in his
lowly occupation of shepherd to represent some strange miscarriage of Nature's
designs.' Full of memorable portraits of the villagers, Mad Shepherds is
a compulsively readable, sometimes strange book about an England now entirely
lost and largely forgotten. This new edition has an introduction by the actor
and director Mackenzie Crook.