THE BANVILLE DIARIES: JOURNALS OF A NORFOLK GAMEKEEPER 1822-44. Edited by Norman Virgoe and Susan Yaxley. Introduction by Lord Buxton.

1986 1st edition. Large 8vo (179 x 250mm). Pp224. Colour and b/w plates, illustrations. Green cloth, spine titled in gilt.

Larry Banville was gamekeeper to Lord Buxton between 1823 and 1869. At his death he left four volumes of diaries with the express wish that they be published. This finally happened a century later". The diaries are not only about shooting and gamekeeping. They are primarily about people, in Banville's native Ireland as well as Scotland, Sweden and England. There are pungent comments on the local Norfolk gentry - and on other gamekeepers - and vivid records of the true distress caused to ordinary villagers by the Corn Laws and Game Laws". Banville's diaries reveal that he had a remarkably fraught relationship with his master, and it is quite remarkable that he remained in the same post for forty-six years. A fascinating account of an independently minded man successfully making his way in tough era.