John Rutter's book first appeared in 1829 and immediately appealed to a wide audience due to the high quality of the book's content. This new edition is destined to match, if not succeed, its predecessor.

John Rutter was born in Bristol on the 10th of April 1796 and was the youngest of seven children. In July 1818 he married the daughter of a Quaker draper. That same year he published his first pamphlet, summarising the history of a piece of countryside south-east of Shaftesbury. Delineations of the North Western Division of the County of Somerset was first published in 1829 and was the result of two excursions Rutter made in 1828.