Shanks's Pony

Shanks's Pony, by Morris Marples: An early history of Pedestrianism

Photo of Goat Rocks by Tom Hust

I've just finished the book "Shanks's Pony" and I want to pass along my thoughts about this book to friends.  Published in 1959 it's way more of a "used book" than anything current and because it deals primarily with the history of English Pedestrianism, with only a few American's referenced, it's sort of "Old World" in it's references, stories, and outlook.  

However, this book digs into the connection between the interest in walking and the interest in preserving the natural landscape more than later American writings because it goes back to a time when the two weren't related culturally, sort of like Americsn farm music before "Country AND Western".  It draws the connecting line from walking English Country roads to first the pack and then the tent, then Alpineism.  I'm not saying it has a lot about our concepts of Wilderness, but going back to the 1600's casts a revealing light on the post Marshall/Leopold/Muir writings and gives any outlook on Wilderness a standard of where the present "legislation and culture wars" were not a part of the whole "outside" thing?  We have come from a time when mountain scapes were known as "rude settings" to something quite different, along a line of evolving understandings and appreciation of "the natural.  

Anyway, this book is only available in used copies (ebay??) but if you run across it at a reasonable price I think you will enjoy reading about the times when "Walkers" along English roads would walk 72 miles a day for 5 consecutive days, pretty much for the Hell of it.  It talks about the walking feats of the romantic poets (they should be known more for their walking feats than their pathetic poetry), and it does bridge into Americans pedestrians (one reference to Thoreau, two references to Whitman?).  The world probably won't stop if you don't read this book but if you do, you'll have a much better handle to understand the tradition that evolved into our appreciation of the natural setting; how far we've come and how close we still are to the foundations of our relationship to Mountains/mh.

Shanks's Poney, by Morris Marples.  J. M. Dent and sons, London/ 1959