SOURCE: "As Poet-Naturalist," in Richard Jefferies: A Study, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1894, pp. 49-69.

In the following excerpt, Salt discusses the shift in Jefferies's style from naturalist to poet-naturalist, as "we find the poetical and imaginative element wielding almost complete supremacy over the merely descriptive and scientific. '

The volumes which mark this most important transition [from naturalist to poet-naturalist] are Wood Magic and Bevis, published in 1881 and 1882 respectively, in both of which the central idea is the intimate sympathetic converse that exists, or is imagined to exist, between childhood and Nature.

The character of Bevis, the boy-hero of both stories, in spite of the tedious length of the narrative, is one of the most charming of Jefferies' creations, and has far more vitality than most of the figures in his novels. For Bevis, apart from his adventurous wanderings and voyages (which interest us chiefly as being actual records...