First published in 1969 and out of print for more than twenty-five
years, The Long-Legged House was 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.