吉米·哈利 James Herriot（1916—1995），原名James Alfred Wight，苏格兰人。一个多才多艺的兽医，也是个善于说故事的高手，被英国媒体誉为“其写作天赋足以让很多职业作家羞愧”。

平实而不失风趣的文风和朴素的博爱主义打动了千千万万英美读者，并启发了后世的兽医文学。多部自传体小说相继荣登《纽约时报》畅销书榜首，后被BBC拍成电影和系列热门电视剧 All creatures great and small。出版界公认他是少数几位能在大西洋两岸英语世界都长期畅销的作家之一。

1979年获颁大英帝国勋章并谒见女王，1982年获颁皇家医学院特别会员，1983年则获颁利物浦大学荣誉兽医博士。

一系列畅销书为他带来了非凡的荣誉和财富，但是吉米•哈利依然安之若素，坚持在乡间从事兽医工作，执业长达五十多年。1995年因癌症去世。

Millions of readers have delighted in the wonderful storytelling and everyday miracles of James Herriot in the over thirty years since his delightful animal stories were first introduced to the world.

Now in a new edition for the first time in a decade, All Things Bright and Beautiful is the beloved sequel to Herriot's first collection, All Creatures Great and Small, and picks up as Herriot, now newly married, journeys among the remote hillside farms and valley towns of the Yorkshire Dales, caring for their inhabitants---both two- and four-legged. Throughout, Herriot's deep compassion, humor, and love of life shine out as we laugh, cry, and delight in his portraits of his many, varied animal patients and their equally varied owners.

"Humor, realism, sensitivity, earthiness; animals comic and tragic; and people droll, pathetic, courageous, eccentric---all of whom he views with the same gentle compassion and a lively sense of the sad, the ridiculous, and the admirable."

--Columbus Dispatch