Sheil Land Associates Ltd.

After an education at Oxford, Richard worked as a lecturer in Social Studies in Further Education, then as a Senior Editor at Penguin Books. He became a full-time writer in 1974. He is the author of some thirty books, including the ground-breaking and best-selling “cultural flora” Flora Britannica (1996), winner of a National Book Award, and Gilbert White, which won the Whitbread Biography Award in 1986. His memoir Nature Cure (2005), which describes how reconnecting with the wild helped him break free from debilitating depression, was short-listed for three major literary awards, the Whitbread, Ondaatje, and J.R. Ackerley prizes.

His classic Food For Free, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022, and has sold over a million copies.

The Accidental Garden (2024) was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize and the Richard Jeffries Award, was a Waterstones best Nature Writing book of 2024, and a BBC Wildlife Book of the Year 2024. 

Richard has written a personal column in BBC Wildlife magazine, writes for the Guardian, New Statesman and Granta, and has been a frequent contributor to BBC radio. He has been awarded two Leverhulme Fellowships, and honorary doctorates by the universities of St Andrews, Essex and East Anglia. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. He is a past President of Waveney and Blythe Arts, Vice-President of the Open Spaces Society, and Patron of the John Clare Society. He lives in Norfolk, in the Waveney Valley with his partner Polly.