Hope Bourne has been described as one of the finest writers about the British countryside in the twentieth century. Her prose delineated Exmoor, its character and its characters, at its finest. In beautifully measured terms, she described the daily round of a life lived close to nature and to the land.
Her work published in her lifetime invariably included some supporting line drawings – sharply memorable vignettes – and full-colour works for the covers of her books, for she was an extremely skilled artist. Yet although she left over 2000 artworks at her death, and many others in private hands, there has hitherto not been a volume that focuses on her painting and drawing.
Now for the first time, the publication of a collection of her works of art gives the opportunity to remedy this omission and to view Hope Bourne and her achievements through the media of her paint-box and her pencil. The sweep of the moorland, the colour of the hounds and huntsmen, the delicacy of the soaring bird, the haven of the farmhouse, the nobility of the stag, all were captured by Hope Bourne on paper to give an immediate and graphic expression to her love of Exmoor.