By Himself

This volume brings together, in definitive form, all of John Clare's important autobiographical writings. HisAutobiographical Fragments, Journal, andSketchesare set alongside his famousJourney out of Essex. Maps of Clare's countryside, his will, and extracts from his asylum letters are also included, presenting the author in all his guisesploughboy, gardener, and militiaman; lover and husband; acquaintance of Hazlitt, Lamb, and Coleridge; and finally, inmate in an asylum.

John Clare was an English rural-poet and storyteller, commonly known as the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet. David Powell was the librarian at Nene College, Northampton. Eric Robinson is a professor of modern history at the University of Massachusetts.