All Things Herriot: James Herriot and His Peaceable Kingdom

by Sanford Sternlicht

Book Overview

All Things Herriot is the first full-length book about this best-selling author, whose work, adapted for television, has swept through the world in one of the most popular and enduring series of all times: All Creatures Great and Small. Sternlicht offers a comprehensive, up-to-the-moment evaluation of the Herriot achievements, and it offers the most detailed biography of the real Herriot, James Alfred Wight, in print to date. He explores...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815606117
• ISBN13: 9780815606116
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"All Things Herriot" is all things bright and beautiful

I would just like to say that I have been a fan of the great James Herriot and his writings for many years. His books have transported me to places of green pastures and bittersweet memories of the English countryside and the animals that lived there. This book, "All Things Herriot: James Herriot and His Peaceable Kingdom" has captured the reality behind the man who had brought us down those craggy pathways to the sweet, heartwrentching stories of our animal friends. Thank you for this book and for helping us to better know the man behind it all.

A comprehensive, illuminating critical /literary biography!

All Things Herriot: James Herriot and His Peaceable Kingdom is just what its title implies: a comprehensive overview of all of the works of James Herriot (pen name of James Alfred Wight),skillfully interwoven with a biography of the famous veterinarian/writer. The book's author, Sanford Sternlicht, is a professor of English at Syracuse University and was for a time a Visiting Fellow at York University; his perspective on Herriot and on his beloved Yorkshire is informed and fine-tuned, and the tone of All Things Herriot is on the whole warm and appreciative. Sternlicht examines all of Herriot's major works, as well as his compilations and juvenile publications. He points out the unifying themes in all these works in a very clear and direct way -- the recurrent archetypal stories of birth, life, and death (which, as archetypes, will forever have universal appeal and will stand up well to repeated readings), and Herriot's message that suffering (animal and human) is "...the great, perennial challenge to all our humanity. Our response to suffering is ultimately how, as societies and individuals, we are to be judged." (All Things Herriot, p.76) Other facets of Herriot's appeal, which Sternlicht brings to the fore so well, include his beautifully-drawn and intricate portraits of the Yorkshire people, and of course, the animals, as well as Herriot's seemingly limitless store of heart-wrenching, gorgeous descriptions of the wild beauty of Yorkshire itself. This critical/literary biography never talks down to the reader, and more than once I pulled out my trusty dictionary to ascertain the full meaning of a passage -- but I enjoy learning new things and I'm sure that most readers will find this a stimulating read! Sternlicht's style is direct and immediate and colorful (not unlike Herriot's!), and I found it a joy to read. It made me want to re-read all the Herriot books, armed as I am with so much new understanding of Herriot and his world. This is a must for all Herriot fans and for those who have yet to discover his work. It is a fascinating and thorough portrait of not only a caring healer, a professional in his field, but (amazingly) a very gifted storyteller as well.