A SELECTION EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY WILLIAM PLOMER Francis Kilvert was an country clergyman who lived from 1840 to 1879, and these are his diaries: gossipy, sweet-natured, generous, curious, and full of an abiding wonder and delight in the natural world and the beauties of the changing seasons. A worthy heir to Pepys and Dorothy Wordsworth, Kilvert is an irresistible companion.