All Things Considered

Robert Gibbings
Posted by Simon Lewin

It wasn't long after I'd taken up fly fishing that I became aware of Robert Gibbings' work - I remember coming across a copy of his book 'Coming Down The Wye' in a secondhand bookshop and being enthralled by his wood engravings.

I was so pleased that Caught By The River had obtained permission to use his work for their recent anthology of writing about rivers.

Over at Caught By The River, Mathew Clayton has written this great profile of Gibbings' work:

"In July 1939, just before the start of the second world war, Robert Gibbings launched a flat bottom boat called 'Willow', that he had built in the workshops at Reading University where he worked, into the Thames. Over the next few weeks he meandered downstream. During the day he sketched the wildlife and enjoyed the hospitality of the many riverside pubs, at night he slept under canvas in the boat. The resulting book about this journey, Sweet Thames Runs Softly, the title taken from a 16th Century poem by Edward Spenser that is also quoted by TS Eliot in the Wasteland, was published by JM Dent in 1940, and became a bestseller. Its simple pastoral charm offered a picture of England that many feared we were about to lose." Read the profile in full

Posted by Simon Lewin on September 14th, 2009