William Henry Hudson

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Henry Hudson 1918

William Henry Hudson (born August 4, 1841 in Quilmes , Argentina, † August 18, 1922 in London ) was an Argentine-British writer, naturalist and ornithologist .

life and work

Bust of Hudson in Florencio Varela , Argentina

Hudson was in Quilmes in the province of Buenos Aires as the son of settlers who emigrated from Ireland and England to the United States and then to Argentina. Already a good rider at the age of six, he fell ill with rheumatic fever and could not fulfill his dream of becoming a gaucho. He spent his youth with the observation of the Argentine flora and fauna and saw itself as a field researcher (naturalist field), the "with its observation objects in a kind of animistic " communication occurred. From 1860 he earned money by shooting birds and sending their hides to zoological institutes. His first publications were work in the Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society. Hudson published a series of ornithological studies and later became famous for books on English nature observation.

In the early 1870s he traveled to Patagonia to watch birds. As soon as he arrived on the Patagonian plains, he injured himself with a bullet and gave up his ornithological studies. Twenty years later, he incorporated his travel experiences into one of his first books, Idle Days in Patagonia .

After the death of his parents, he left Argentina in 1874 to move to Great Britain , where he initially suffered bitter hardship and became a writer. His best-known books are the tragic-romantic novel Green Mansions (1904) (Dt. Rima , later The Bird Girl ) and an autobiographical study of Argentine nature with the title Far Away and Long Ago (1918).

His grave is in Broadwater near Worthing , West Sussex .

Joseph Conrad was one of his admirers : “One can always try to learn how Hudson works, and never will. He writes down his words how God makes the grass grow ”.

He is considered the Argentine national poet, and in the Andes the Cerro Hudson peak is named after him.

Publications

  • The Purple Land that England Lost. Travels and Adventures in the Banda Oriental, South America (1885)
  • A Crystal Age (1887)
  • Argentine Ornithology (1888), with Philip Lutley Sclater
  • The Naturalist in la Plata (1892)
  • Idle Days in Patagonia (1893), German idle days in Patagonia , translated by Rainer G. Schmidt , Achilla Presse, Butjadingen 2008, ISBN 9783940350022 ; New edition: Idle days in Patagonia , Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-95757-793-1 .
  • Birds in a Village (1893)
  • Lost British Birds (1894) pamphlet
  • British Birds (1895)
  • Osprey; or, Egrets and Aigrettes (1896)
  • An Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer (1897)
  • Birds in London (1898)
  • Nature in Downland (1900)
  • Birds and Man (1901)
  • The Famous Missions of California (1901)
  • El Ombu (1902) stories, later South American Sketches, German El Ombu , South American stories , Friedenauer Presse, Berlin 2007, ISBN 9783932109539 .
  • Hampshire Days (1903)
  • Rousseau and Naturalism in Life and Thought (1903)
  • Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest (1904), German Rima. The story of a love from the tropical forest , translated by Kuno Weber, Manesse, Zurich 1958; New edition: The bird girl . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-608-87510-7 .
  • An Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer (1904)
  • A Little Boy Lost (1905)
  • Land's End. A Naturalist's Impressions in West Cornwall , also The Land's End (1908)
  • Afoot in England (1909)
  • A Shepherd's Life. Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs (1910)
  • Adventures among Birds (1913)
  • The Man Napoleon (1915)
  • Tales of the Pampas (1916)
  • Far Away and Long Ago - A History of My Early Life (1918), Ger. Far away and a long time ago. Argentinian memories , translated by Rainer. G. Schmidt, Achilla Presse, Butjadingen 2008, ISBN 978-3940350046 .
  • The Book of a Naturalist (1919)
  • Birds in Town and Village (1919), expanded revision of Birds in a Village
  • France: The Nation and Its Development (1919)
  • Birds of La Plata (1920), Hudson's Part in Argentine Ornithology
  • Dead Man's Plack (1920)
  • To Old Thorn (1920)
  • A Traveler in Little Things (1921)
  • A Tired Traveler (1921), essay
  • Seagulls in London. Why They Took To Coming To Town (1922), essay
  • A Hind in Richmond Park (1922)
  • The Collected Works (1922-23), 24 volumes
  • 153 Letters from WH Hudson (1923)
  • Rare Vanishing & Lost British Birds (1923)
  • Ralph Herne (1923)
  • Men, Books and Birds (1925)
  • The Disappointed Squirrel (1925), from The Book of a Naturalist .
  • Fan-The Story of a Young Girl's Life (1926), as Henry Harford
  • Mary's Little Lamb (1929)
  • South American Romances (1930) The Purple Land; Green mansions; El Ombú
  • WH Hudson's Letters to RB Cunninghame Graham (1941)
  • Tales of the Gauchos (1946)
  • Letters on the ornithology of Buenos Ayres . (1951)
  • Diary Concerning his Voyage from Buenos Aires to Southampton on the Ebro (1958)
  • Gauchos of the Pampas and Their Horses (1963) short stories, with RB Cunninghame Graham
  • English Birds and Green Places: Selected Writings (1964)
  • Birds of a Feather: Unpublished Letters of WH Hudson (1981)

literature

  • John R. Payne: WH Hudson. A Bibliography . 1977.
  • Jason Wilson: Living in the sound of the wind , [A Personal Quest For WH Hudson, Naturalist And Writer From The River Plate], London: Constable, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4721-2205-6

Web links

Individual proof

  1. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: The weapons of the wild cat. Retrieved June 16, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Hudson, William Henry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harford, Henry (pen name); Hudson, WH
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Argentine-British writer, naturalist and ornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Quilmes (city)
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1922
Place of death London