Tarka the Otter

For the first time in Penguin Modern ClassicsIn the wild there is no safety. The otter cub Tarka grows up with his mother and sisters, learning to swim, catch fish - and to fear the cry of the hunter and the flash of the metal trap. Soon he must fend for himself, travelling through rivers, woods, moors, ponds and out to sea, sometimes with the female otters White-tip and Greymuzzle, always on the run. Eventually, chased by a pack of hounds, he meets his nemesis, the fearsome dog Deadlock, and must fight for his life.

“'The supreme writer of the English countryside' - Christopher Somerville, Daily Telegraph”

'The supreme writer of the English countryside' - Christopher Somerville, Daily Telegraph

Henry Williamson is regarded by many as Britain's finest nature writer. He was born in London in 1895 but his work is rooted in the north Devon countryside where he went to live after being deeply affected by his experiences in the First World War. He published some fifty books, a mix of country stories, most famously Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon, and autobiographical fiction, including the fifteen-volume novel cycle, A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight. He died in 1977.Jeremy Gavron is the author of five books, including The Last Elephant- An African Quest, and three novels, Moon, The Book of Israel, which won the Encore Award, and An Acre of Barren Ground.

'The supreme writer of the English countryside' Christopher Somerville, Daily Telegraph With a new Introduction by Jeremy Gavron In the wild there is no safety. The otter club Tarka grows up with his mother and sisters, learning to swim, catch fish - and to fear the cry of the hunter and the flash of the metal trap. Soon he must fend for himself, travelling through rivers, woods, moors, ponds and out to sea, sometimes with the female otters White-tip and Greymuzzle, always on the run. Eventually, chased by a pack of hounds, he meets his nemesis, the fearsome dog Deadlock, and must fight for his life. Tarka the Otter depicts a fierce struggle for survival in the wild that also carries echoes of the author's experiences of the First World War. The result of years spent observing otters in north Devon, it is a celebration of life, the eternal rhythms of nature and the English countryside.

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