As the nights draw in amid the endless rummaging for the thick socks and scarves, Winter is a time of year that not just embodies the colder months of the year, but also brings with it a time of celebration and renewal. It is at these times a myriad authors throughout literature’s long and venerated history which complete the pages of Nature Tales For Winter Nights, a new anthology of writing on Winter, edited by Nancy Campbell.
Combining some of the world’s folklore tales and some of the more well-known authors, such as Charlotte Bronte, Walt Whitman and Daniel Defoe, Cambell has infused this anthology with some, possibly, lesser well-known names, such as the American explorer, Matthew Henson and Austrian Journalist, Joseph Roth, along with some newer names, such as Daisy Hildyard and Damian Le Bas, thus reassuring the reader that the cold months of Winter are not ones they alone have experienced.
Although an anthology, Nature Tales For Winter Nights is certainly not what I expected to read. Expecting tales, or essays, on what Winter means to the authors, of how wildlife and nature adapt to the seasons, but we are given so much more with tales and poetry that remind us of the bleakness of these months, the coming of the new year and new possibilities, of the solitude, and even the fear, as the opening verse by Anne Frank portrays so vehemently.
Although Nature Tales For Winter Nights can most certainly be read from cover to cover, I do feel it’s more of a book to be read through the colder season, and it certainly feels that would be the ideal way to enjoy this book, allowing it to bring comfort to any reader warming over a mug of cocoa.
- Nature Tales For Winter Nights, edited by Nancy Campbell is published by Elliott & Thompson (£16.99). To order a copy go to eandtbooks.com
Tom Stanger
Founder and Editor of Pilgrim House, currently undertaking a research degree at Bangor University and working on a book on Folklore and early Welsh Christianity. Tom’s other work on music, poetry, health along other writings and images can be found at tomasstanger.com
