John Thomas Blight, FSA, was born in Penzance in 1835. He showed an extraordinary early talent in drawing, botany and wood engraving, and spent much of his youth sketching the ancient stones and holy wells of west Penwith, soon gaining the respect of scholars like Robert Stephen Hawker, James Orchard Halliwell and Sabine-Baring Gould. His work was in demand, and he published several books, including the delightfully evocative A Week at the Land's End (1861), in which he illustrated 'the extreme western point of England; its romantic scenery, its natural productions, and its ancient legends'. In his introduction, Charles Thomas shows the importance of Blight's work in its time, and how it contributes to the historiography of Cornwall.

'This is one of those books that deserve a place in the collection of anyone with even the slightest interest in the Land's End district. Alison Hodge is to be complimented on making it available to the present generation. 'J.T. Blight had an insatiable curiosity and in his book encompasses everything - antiquities, history, church architecture, natural history, mining, fishing... He was an accurate observer and often provides the only reliable guide to some of the antiquities that have disappeared or suffered restoration since his day. 'The introduction to this edition by Charles Thomas, Professor of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter, places J.T. Blight in the context of mid Victorian Cornwall. It reminds us of the wide circle of his acquaintances and friends, and of his considerable accomplishments.' (Old Cornwall, X, 10, Spring 1990)

Born in 1835, J.T. Blight's interests embraced botany and natural history, ecclesiology and antiquarian topics. A skilled draughtsman and engraver, as well as a writer, he was early elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He was 'the reflector and chronicler of rural West Penwith in the mid-Victorian era' (Charles Thomas). Charles Thomas is a former Professor of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter, President of the Society for Medieval Archaeology and of the Cornwall Archaeological Society, and a member of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England. He has a great fondness for nineteenth-century Cornwall.