John Cecil Moore (1907-1967) was a best-selling British writer and pioneer conservationist. He was described by Sir Compton Mackenzie as the most talented writer about the countryside of his generation. His best-selling trilogy, published in the years immediately after the Second World War (Portrait of Elmbury, Brensham Village and The Blue Field) Ð was followed by a series of novels and self-styled ‘country-contentments’. The Waters Under the Earth is his last novel.