Green Mansions : A Romance of the Tropical Forest ([New] ed.)

First published by Duckworth in 1904, this prophetic classic is the haunting tale of an ill-fated love.

European Abel seeks refuge from war in the virgin forests of southwestern Venezuela.

There, in the 'green mansion' of the title, Abel encounters the wood-nymph Rima, the last survivor of a mysterious aboriginal race.

The bird-girl's ethereal presence captivates him completely, but the love that flowers between them is soon blighted by cruelty and sorrow.A master of natural history writing, W H Hudson forms an important link between 19th century Romanticism and the 20th century ecological movement. "Green Mansions" transports the reader to an uncommon world as varied as the sounds of its forests and as strangely powerful as the mystic, near-religious beauty of its dense jungles.

Exploring a love somewhere between reality and imagination, this book offers its readers a poignant meditation on the loss of wilderness, the dream of a return to nature, and the bitter reality of the encounter between savage and civilized man.

Hudson's deep love and knowledge of the jungle and grasslands and his literary expertise lend a special authenticity and appeal to this unusual and compelling tale.