Kilvert’s diaries are famous throughout the world. They are acclaimed for quality of the diarist’s response to Victorian society and his passionate love of the natural world. Life in his two homes, near Chippenham and on the Radnor-Hereford border (now known as ’Kilvert Country’) shines through his writing.

But what do the heavily abridged diaries tell us of Kilvert himself? The answer, surprisingly, is very little. In this first full length biography, David Lockwood uses the diaries, local sources and his wide knowledge of the period to present a new view of Francis Kilvert. He appears as devout and literary, gentle and compassionate, easily and passionately moved by all kinds of beauty, a man of his times. This new study adds massively to our understanding of the man, his writings and the society which shaped them both.