A Ramble Through the History of Walking - by Bill Laws (Paperback)

About the Book

'The great affair is to move: to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot, ' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. This book celebrates the history of walking for leisure and pleasure.

Book Synopsis

'The great affair is to move: to come down off this featherbed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot, ' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. This book celebrates the history of walking for leisure and pleasure.

There's no shortage of the famous, and the not so famous, exponents of a good, long walk: Dr. Johnson and his faithful Boswell on their Hebridean jaunt; John Taylor, whose Penniless Pilgrimage, a record of his 1618 journey from London to Edinburgh, provided the first account of a walking tour; and Samuel Coleridge who conceived his epic tale of the Ancient Mariner on a ramble through Devon. The author also includes the stories of key inventions: the cagoule, the Thermos flask, the rucksack, Gore-Tex and the walking pole.

Fully illustrated throughout, A Ramble Through the History of Walking tells the engaging history of one of man's favorite pastimes.

About the Author

Bill Laws has written seven books on garden history, including Artist's Gardens (Ward Lock, 1999). He writes for The Telegraph, Sainsbury's Magazine and Period House. Formerly a professional gardener, he manages an organic garden on the Welsh borders.