Little Toller Books

Little Toller Books Independent publisher and bookshop based in west Dorset. Nature, culture, place.

Little Toller's 12 Bookish days of Christmas!Today we’re featuring a pocket-sized hardback we love. Beautifully produced...
09/12/2025

Little Toller's 12 Bookish days of Christmas!

Today we’re featuring a pocket-sized hardback we love. Beautifully produced in full colour throughout, it’s the perfect stocking filler or maybe you are heading to Venice ( its the best time of year to go ) in which case this book is a must!

Of all the cities Jan Morris knew well, Venice held a particular claim on her imagination. In A Venetian Bestiary, she turns her attention to the animals — real, imaginary, and rendered in stone or paint — that move through the fabric of the city she wrote about with such insight and affection. Fully illustrated and impeccably introduced by journalist and author Sophy Roberts.

Available from bookshops or our website: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/venetian-bestairy-by-jan-morris/

We're overjoyed to share that Horatio Clare has been shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards for We Came by Sea.This is a r...
21/11/2025

We're overjoyed to share that Horatio Clare has been shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards for We Came by Sea.

This is a richly deserved recognition for a vital book. Through Horatio's journeys to Dover, Calais and beyond - meeting ordinary people, volunteers, refugees and journalists - We Came by Sea reveals the human stories behind the headlines of the small-boats crisis.

It's the story of volunteers and RNLI crews doing everything they can to help thousands of refugees. It's the story of a Britain every bit as good and generous as the people in the dinghies hope it to be. It's not a story that we're often told, but it is a true one.

Huge thanks to the judges, Edmund Gordon, Katy Guest and Polly Markham for recognising the importance of Horatio's book, and the grace and compassion with which he writes about one of the most divisive stories of our time.

And yes, we're chuffed too - the smallest publisher on this truly impressive shortlist.

We're rushing through a paperback edition of We Came by Sea, which will be in bookshops before Christmas. (you can pre-order now from your local bookshop or from our website).

Nero Book Awards

https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/we-came-by-sea-by-horatio-clare-paperback-edition/

A little autumn offer! 15% discount on our books, before 1st November, on our website only. Use LTB15G at the checkout t...
27/10/2025

A little autumn offer! 15% discount on our books, before 1st November, on our website only. Use LTB15G at the checkout to redeem. Maybe try Edward Thomas The Icknield Way, or Caro Giles' Unschooled, or Peter Hahn's memoir of life on a vineyard.... https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/

'Why go straight? There is nothing at the end of any road better than may be found beside it, though there would be no t...
21/10/2025

'Why go straight? There is nothing at the end of any road better than may be found beside it, though there would be no travel did men believe it. The straight road, except over level and open country, can only be made by those in whom extreme haste and forethought have destroyed the power of joy, either at the end or at any part of its course.’ Edward Thomas.

One of the first books we ever published was The South Country by Edward Thomas, introduced by Robert Macfarlane. In 2016 we published In Pursuit of Spring, introduced by Alexandra Harris. Thomas has always been an important figure for us and indeed for writers and poets at large. Ted Hughes called him 'the father of us all.'

For a long time we've wanted to publish more of Thomas' prose and so are delighted that next spring we'll publish The Icknield Way, with an introduction by Jack Cornish , author of The Lost Paths.

In The Icknield Way Thomas takes us on a journey along what may be England's oldest path, bringing together history and his own experience of walking it, from Thetford in Norfolk to Wanborough in Wiltshire.

The cover 'The Icknield Way' is by Spencer Gore (1878-1914).

The book is available to pre-order now from our website. Link here or in our bio: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/the-icknield-way-by-edward-thomas/

And imminently from your local bookshop.

'A geologically inclined pastoral; an ode to the Lakes; an eye-opening portrait of post war bucolicism; an unravelling o...
13/10/2025

'A geologically inclined pastoral; an ode to the Lakes; an eye-opening portrait of post war bucolicism; an unravelling of family secrets...and a dogged quest for the trail of Kurt Schwitters whose collages form a template or model for this extravagantly variegated book.' Jonathan Meades

Just over a week ago we launched a Crowdfunder campaign for Jennifer Potter's new book, which resurrects a pivotal artist - Kurt Schwitters - and places him firmly in the soil of Potter's native Lake District, where Schwitters lived, and died, as a penniless refugee in 1948. Derided as a 'degenerate artist' by the N***s he fled Germany and having been interned as an 'enemy alien' he travelled to the Lakes.

Schwitters was one of the rising stars of modern art in Germany in the 1920s and 30s, making art from rubbish and found objects. But once he settled into the Lake District he dashed off a series of landscapes, portraits, collages and abstracts, allowing his new home to seep into his work.

Jennifer's book is not a biography, not a memoir, not an art book; it occupies a beguiling space between genres, and shines a new light on the artist's final years and his last, great, unfinished work.

Excitingly we reached the target for the Crowdfunder in just a few days, but would like to raise more money to produce the book that Schwitters' and Jennifer richly deserve. Working with the author we have an exciting range of rewards for supporters of the book.

Take a look at the Crowdfunder page, where you can also see a video of Jennifer describing her wonderful book.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/looking-for-mr-schwitters---a-new-book-1

80% of Britain’s bogs and peatlands have been drained, stripped or irreversibly damaged over the last 200 years, but the...
07/10/2025

80% of Britain’s bogs and peatlands have been drained, stripped or irreversibly damaged over the last 200 years, but they still contain more carbon than all the forests in UK, France and Germany combined. Often viewed as wasteland, these landscapes are brimming with biodiversity and play an essential role in how we mitigate the extremes of climate change. Walshaw Moor in West Yorkshire is one such place.

Renowned for its blanket peat bog, Walshaw Moor is a breeding habitat for endangered ground-nesting birds, such as curlews, lapwings and golden plovers. It is also the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the poetry of Ted Hughes, and is much-loved for its network of footpaths threading into the Upper Calder Valley and the South Pennines. In recent years, however, the future of Walshaw Moor has been threatened by a proposal to build England’s largest onshore wind farm.

The Book of Bogs began as a community response to this threat, and has grown beyond the Moor into a wider celebration and campaign for bogs and other peatland ecologies. With original poetry and essays from over 40 established authors and new voices, the collection combines natural history, archaeology, culture, myth and adventure, offering insight into why these landscapes are at the forefront of debates about energy and land use. The book delves into the boglands like never before, relishing in the sweep of heather, the glow of moss and the stillness of peat waters.

We're delighted to have worked with Clare and Anna, the editors of the book, and the amazing contributors: Robert Macfarlane, Amy Liptrot, Patti Smith, Horatio Clare, Nicola Chester, Alys Fowler, Guy Shrubsole, and many others, too numerous and talented to list here in full.

The Book of Bogs is out now, from your local bookshop, or our website: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/the-book-of-bogs-edited-by-anna-chilvers-and-clare-shaw/

Waterstones has included Unschooled, Caro Giles' urgent and important memoir about how school doesn't work for many chil...
29/07/2025

Waterstones has included Unschooled, Caro Giles' urgent and important memoir about how school doesn't work for many children, in their preorder offer. Order it on Waterstones website before the end of July using the code SUMMER25 to get 25% off.

Unschooled is published in early September.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/unschooled/caro-giles/9781915068439

23rd July, Foyles Charing Cross Road! Jeff Young, Catherine Coldstream and Clair Wills, for the TLS Ackerley Prize.
14/07/2025

23rd July, Foyles Charing Cross Road! Jeff Young, Catherine Coldstream and Clair Wills, for the TLS Ackerley Prize.

Some brilliant news! Wild Twin by Jeff Young has been shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Award, awarded every year for a w...
17/06/2025

Some brilliant news! Wild Twin by Jeff Young has been shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Award, awarded every year for a work of autobiography. It's a fantastic achievement and richly deserved. The other two shortlisted books are Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream (Chatto and Windus) and Missing Persons by Clair Willis (Allen Lane).

The judges said of Wild Twin 'A highly original book about the pursuit of romantic ideals, and the workings - and failings - of memory. It's written in extraordinarily vivid, at times almost stream-of-consciousness prose, that brilliantly reflects the unusual life it describes.'

The winner will be announced at a special event at Foyles Charing Cross Road on 23rd July. Tickets available now: https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/tls-ackerley-prize-2025

Happy publication day to the amazing Horatio Clare!We Came By Sea, Stories of a greater Britain is an untold story of th...
02/06/2025

Happy publication day to the amazing Horatio Clare!

We Came By Sea, Stories of a greater Britain is an untold story of the small boats crisis, a story which shows the best of us. It is the story of the volunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews mounting one of the great search and rescue operations of all time, of an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate. It is a journey through an unexamined nation, a nation which is as truly great and good as the people in the dinghies believe Britain to be. It is not the story we have been told, and it is a true story.

Look out for reviews and events!

Available from bookshops and our website https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/we-came-by-sea-by-horatio-clare/

Author photo: Billie Charity and Hay Festival.

Address

2 Church Street
Beaminster
DT83AZ

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 4pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 4pm

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+441308863442

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About Little Toller

Little Toller was founded in 2009 with the singular purpose of re-publishing the great books of rural writing for a new generation. We now also publish contemporary writing focused on place, landscape and nature. Our authors include Dara McAnulty, Marcus Sedgwick, Fiona Sampson, John Burnside, Adam Thorpe, Tim Dee, Sean Lysaght, Clare Leighton, Edward Thomas, W H Hudson and Richard Jefferies. Little Toller is based in west Dorset.