THE MAN WHO FOUND THE BROADS: A biography of George Christopher Davies. By Jamie Campbell and Cliff Middleton.

1999 1st edition. Large 4to paperback (210 x 298mm). Ppiv,44. B/w photographs and illustrations, bibliography of G. Christopher Davies.

An excellent bibliographical reference to this popular sporting author. George Christopher Davies was an Oswestry solicitor who moved to Norwich in 1871 after reading an article on the Norfolk Broads in The Field; "in Norfolk, there seemed more scope for the water vagabond," he wrote later in life. "The Broads that he found must have been little short of a paradise. An age before phosphates and nitrates, with few roads and travel still more convenient by wherry than horse and trap. ...He describes crystal-clear water and frequently watches shoals of fish basking or feeding amongst lilies or reeds; bream nibbling his fingers and tench that could be tickled and caught by hand. He notices and records the life all around him and there are regular appearances in his writings of potentially dangerous bulls, notes on kingfishers, heron, bittern, various wildfowl, all manner of fish and even advice on the viability of various waterside activities. ...the Victorians felt they had stumbled across a series of peaty lagoons left by a retreating ice age." Davies was an enthusiastic angler, naturalist, photographer, yachtsman and philanthropist, as well as a prolific writer of books and articles. This book is a fascinating description of Davies' life and work, illustrated almost entirely from his own photography. Davies' arrival in Norfolk coincided with that of the railway, and it is ironic that his enthusiastic writings were a driving force behind his East Anglian paradise rapidly turning into the tourist-packed satellite of London which it has become today.