The Shepherd's Life
Cover of 2015 UK Hardback
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| Author | James Rebanks |
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| Publisher | Allen Lane |
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Publication date
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2 April 2015 |
| Pages | 320 |
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The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District is an autobiographical book by James Rebanks, a sheep farmer from Matterdale, Cumbria, England, published by Allen Lane in 2015.
Rebanks writes in his own book that he was moved and inspired by another book with almost the same title, A Shepherd's Life by W.H. Hudson, who wrote about Wiltshire sheep-farming in the early years of the last century. According to Rebanks, Hudson's was considered a classic by Ernest Hemingway.
Rebanks' book was the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week in April 2015, and was adapted for theatre by Chris Monks and produced at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, in March 2016. The theatrical production included life-sized puppet sheepdogs and sheep.
Rebanks describes the traditional way of life of shepherds on the Cumbrian fells and vales, and his determination to continue to farm where generations of his forebears had done. After an unsuccessful school education he later studied for A levels in evening classes and graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford University, with a double first in history. He still farms Herdwick sheep, while also running a business consultancy based at his farm, and as of July 2017[update] has a following of 97,700 on Twitter as "Herdwick Shepherd".
The book was published in large print and in the United States as The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape. (Thorndike Press large print edition, ISBN ; Flatiron books, ISBN ).
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