John Clare was reputedly a solitary, shy man, at one with nature and the world around him. Although these authors have both published books which indicate otherwise, in this volume they focus on Clare as a difficult and transgressive figure. While he documented and celebrated the country life he valued so highly, he was also a witness to the partial destruction of that life, with the coming of enclosure and increasingly severe penalties for trespass. John Clare: The Trespasser shows how, in his poetry, autobiography and letters, Clare was no supporter or respecter of property rights, and how he admired and learned from the nomadic gypsies and drovers who loved the land as he did.