RICHARD MABEY (editor/introducer) is the author of more than thirty books, which have won the English National Book Award and been finalists for the Whitbread, the Ondaatje, and the J. R. Ackerley prizes. He writes for the Guardian, New Statesman, and Granta, and contributes frequently to BBC radio. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011.