If Herriot’s tales are new to you, you are in for a treat. To coincide with the new production of All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot’s original American publisher has reissued the author’s first two books, All Creatures Great and Small and All Things Bright and Beautiful. Today, there is a new series airing on PBS introducing Herriot and his Yorkshire of decades past to a new audience. His books became bestsellers and spawned a television series in the late 1970s. Soon, I wasn’t alone as a devoted fan of Alf Wight who, under the pseudonym James Herriot, typed his stories while watching evening television with his family. His descriptions of the individuals and the spectacular scenery reminded me of the tales my English mother told me about her own relatives, many of whom farmed in Yorkshire. As I began reading the book on my lunch break, I fell under the spell of Herriot’s stories of the farm and domestic animals he treated on the isolated and rugged farms in his beloved Yorkshire Dales. The book in question was All Creatures Great and Small, the first American compilation of memoirs by a little-known English veterinarian. When I worked as a librarian in the 1970s, a gem landed on my desk one morning. Martin’s Griffin 2020, softcover, 384 pages, $16.99Īll Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot.
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