Nature Notes for 1906
About this audiobook
More than one hundred years ago, a sensitive woman naturalist, nature lover, and accomplished artist began to chronicle all that she encountered while walking and cycling around the countryside of her native England and neighboring Scotland.
Besides noting the flora and fauna, she included poems and quaint folk sayings, saints' days, mottoes, and tidbits of history. Follow along with her month by month as she chronicles the summer thunderstorms and the first hard frost, notes Lady Day and Candlemas Day, watches birds nesting and raising their young, and quotes Shakespeare's praise of the fickleness of April and Browning's description of early November hours.
Known in its facsimile reproduction as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, which became a New York Times bestseller in 1978, Edith Holden's Nature Notes of 1906 will take the listener back in time one hundred years to when a young woman had the leisure time to deeply explore every nook of her countryside, sweetly celebrating the progress of the seasons on every page of her diary.
About the author
Edith B. Holden (1871–1920) was born in Worcester, England. She was schooled at home before earning a scholarship to attend the Birmingham School of Art. An accomplished watercolorist and art teacher, Edith was known in her time as an illustrator of children’s books.
Vanessa Benjamin (a.k.a. Roe Kendall) is a native of the British Isles. Some twenty-five years ago she moved to the United States with her family and set down roots in Maryland. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, receiving their silver medal as well as the Sir Emile Littler and Caryl Brahms awards. Benjamin has performed on stage in the Washington, DC, area for several years and at many venues and has performed at the Kennedy Center as Mrs. Schubert in the long-running show Shear Madness. An accomplished actress and narrator, she has recorded over two hundred books. Her work as a freelance voice-over artist and narrator has led her in many interesting directions, from technical government materials to eighteenth-century romance novels to hotel advertising, but narrating books is what she really enjoys. “I really love playing all the parts when I narrate a book. It’s an adventure, a challenge, and above all I feel that I learn something new with each book I read. I do a lot of reading for the Library of Congress’ Blind and Physically Handicapped program, and it is so rewarding for me especially when I get a letter from a patron; it’s a great service for the listener.”
