Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry
Together with a Book of Huswifery

Tusser's sixteenth-century instructional verse on good farming practices is modernised and annotated by editor William Mavor in this 1812 edition.

Thomas Tusser (Author), William Fordyce Mavor (Edited by)

9781108066303, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 October 2013

420 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.53 kg

A singer and poet as well as a farmer, Thomas Tusser (c.1524–80) first produced his verse manual on farming in the mid-sixteenth century. Since then, it has gone through more than a dozen editions. This 1812 version is a collation of three of the poem's early editions. Editor William Mavor (1758–1837) provides a biographical sketch of Tusser, modernises the work's orthography and punctuation, and includes page-by-page annotations on subject matter and difficult points of language. The work divides into two: the first half, structured around the farming calendar, deals with the cultivation of open and enclosed land, while the second contains 'points of huswifery', arranged loosely around the working day. Tusser writes from the perspective of a tenant farmer, notably placing emphasis on the often overlooked benefits of land enclosure as well as on the role of women in farm labour.

1. Biographical sketch of Tusser
2. Preliminary dissertation
3. Plan of this edition
4. The author's epistle
5. The book of husbandry
6. The points of huswifery
Glossary.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]