Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English soldier, naturalist, farmer and ruralist writer known for his natural history and social history novels, as well as for his fascist sympathies. He won the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 with his book 'Tarka the Otter'. Henry Williamson is best known for a tetralogy of four novels which consists of 'The Beautiful Years' (1921), 'Dandelion Days' (1922), 'The Dream of Fair Women' (1924) and 'The Pathway' (1928). These novels are collectively known as 'The Flax of Dream' and they follow the life of Willie Maddison from boyhood to adulthood in a rapidly changing world.