The Long-Legged House

First published in 1969 and out of print for more than twenty-five years, The Long-Legged House was award-winner Wendell Berry’s first collection of essays, the inaugural work introducing many of the central issues that have occupied him over the course of his career. Three essays at the heart of this volume—“The Rise,” “The Long-Legged House,” and “A Native Hill”—are essays of homecoming and memoir, as the writer finds his home place, his native ground, his place on earth. As he later wrote, “What I stand for is what I stand on,” and here we see him beginning the acts of rediscovery and resettling.

This volume contains original contents, with only slight revisions as might be desired. It gives readers the opportunity to read the work of this remarkable cultural critic and agrarian, and to delight in the prose of one of America’s greatest stylists.

The tyranny of charity —
The landscaping of hell : strip-mine morality in east Kentucky —
The nature consumers —
The loss of the future —
A statement against the war in Vietnam —
Some thoughts on citizenship and conscience in honor of Don Pratt —
The rise —
The long-legged house —
A native hill