Celebrated nature writer Richard Mabey discusses the relationship between biography, nature, and place with literary critic Alexandra Harris. They delve into a life-writing classic, Richard's biography of the eighteenth-century naturalist Gilbert White, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 1986, and discuss what drew him to write about 'this quiet curate of Selbourne' and the ways in which a writer's sense of place may shape their writing.



This episode is part of our flagship series of Weinrebe Lectures. It is the first instalment of an annual collaboration with the Arts of Place Network at the University of Birmingham, which promotes work on cultural histories of landscape, locality and environment.

Find out more about:

The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing: www.oclw.ox.ac.uk @OxLifeWriting.

Richard Mabey: https://richardmabey.co.uk/ 

Alexandra Harris: https://www.alexandraharris.co.uk/

Arts of Place: https://more.bham.ac.uk/artsofplace/ 

Works mentioned:

Richard Mabey, Gilbert White: A biography of the author of The Natural History of Selbourne [1986] (Allen & Unwin, 2006).

Richard Mabey, Food for Free [1972] (Harper Collins, 2007).

The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing is based at Wolfson College, University of Oxford.

Edited by Charles Pidgeon. Artwork by Una.