Josiah Relph of Sebergham

Josiah Relph (1712-1743) described the life of the Cumberland peasant in his own language. It was an act of intellectual daring. The worlds of Theocritus and Horace, the fields of Sicily and the hills of Rome, became the Cumberland countryside.

Relph was a fine poet, an enthusiastic antiquarian, a schoolmaster and a village curate. His story is also the story of eighteenth century Cumberland and the story of its distinct identity and dialect. This is the first edition of Relph’s poems for over two hundred years.