Rural Rides: Pictures of 19th-Century Countryside

Rural Rides is the book for which the English journalist, agriculturist and political reformer William Cobbett is best known. At the time of writing Rural Rides, in the early 1820s, Cobbett was a radical anti-Corn Law campaigner. He embarked on a series of journeys by horseback through the countryside of Southeast England and the English Midlands. He wrote down what he saw from the points of view both of a farmer and a social reformer. The result documents the early 19th-century countryside and its people as well as giving free vent to Cobbett's opinions