Henry Williamson

Richard Maddison, a clerk in the City of London, struggles on a few shillings a week. He meets Hetty Turney, daughter of a prosperous city merchant and falls in love, but he is not the kind of man her father wants her to marry. Will he ever be able to win her hand?

The story of Salar and his migration through the rivers of Devon leaves us with a vivid unsentimental picture of how both people and wildlife rely on a river and its estuary.

In the wild there is no safety. The otter cub Tarka grows up with his mother and sisters, learning to swim, catch fish - and to fear the cry of the hunter and the flash of the metal trap. Soon he must fend for himself, travelling through rivers, woods, moors, ponds and out to sea, sometimes with the female otters White-tip and Greymuzzle, always on the run. Eventually, chased by a pack of hounds, he meets his nemesis, the fearsome dog Deadlock, and must fight for his life.