Henry Williamson: Tarka the Otter

One of the best-loved animal stories of our time.

"Twilight over meadow and water, the eve-star shining above the hill, and Old Nog the heron crying kra-a-ark! as his slow dark wings carried him down to the estuary."

The classic story of an otter living in the Devonshire countryside which captures the feel of life in the wild as seen through the otter's own eyes.
Tarka is born in Owlery Holt, near Canal Bridge on the River Torridge, where he grows up with his mother and sisters, learning to swim and catch fish, and to beware the hunters' cry. His life is one of adventure and play, but soon he must fend for himself, travelling along streams and rivers to the open sea, sometimes with female otters White-tip and Greymuzzle. Always on the run, Tarka has many close shaves until he finally meets his nemesis, the fearsome hound Deadlock.

Henry William Williamson was born in 1895 in Brockley, south-east London. The then semi-rural location provided easy access to the countryside, and he developed a deep love of nature throughout his childhood. He became a prolific author known for his natural and social history novels. He won the Hawthornden Prize for literatrure in 1928 for Tarka the Otter.