"William Cobbett is one of the most remarkable men in our history. Born in 1763, the son of a Surrey farmer, and virtually self-educated, he became a prolific journalist and master of invective, and is still recognised as one of the greatest ever writers of English prose." "Cobbett lived in turbulent times, and his story is as exciting and eventful as any novel. He joined the army as a young man, but was forced to flee to France and subsequently to America after attempting to expose corruption in his regiment. In Philadelphia he began his career as a political pamphleteer, but once again fell foul of the law and returned to England, where he started his celebrated Political Register, in which for decades he would lambast corruption and excoriate hypocrisy. The foremost satirist and proponent of reform of his era, he had an inexhaustible appetite for exposing the misconduct of the ruling classes. Imprisoned in 1810 for criminal libel, he later fled to America for a second time, but on his return to England (with Thomas Paine's bones in tow) he was yet again put on trial." "Cobbett was not merely a political agitator. He wrote books on farming, gardening, forestry and 'Cottage Economy' (an early version of self-sufficiency). Today he is best known for Rural Rides, his classic account of early-nineteenth-century Britain which has never been out of print."--BOOK JACKET.