Peculiar Privilege : A Social History of English Foxhunting, 1753-1885 Hardback

The landmark book provides a clear understanding of the ways in which landed society functioned, and of the assumptions that governed it.

The work emphasizes the strength of older pre-industrial assumptions and relationships, as it moves through the railway age, concluding with the Great Depression of Agriculture when hunting changed irrevocably.

In the years between the mid-18th century and the British agricultural depression of the 1880s fox-hunting assumed a key cultural role.

It was transformed from the private, informal recreation of a few country squires to a highly organised, extremely influential public institution.

It never ceased to be viewed as a sport - paradoxically, both of the aristocracy and of the people - and it took on a significance out of all proportion to its role as a mere sport. Hunting and the chase became, in the influential words both of hunting and non-hunting people, a full, legitimate feature of rural society, one which could affect the lives of everyone in the society.