Overview

'Inspiring' Waterstones 'Thrilling' Guardian 'Marries words and images to create a special echo of this country's rich past' The Times In Wild, Amy Jeffs journeys - on foot and through medieval texts - from landscapes of desolation to hope, offering the reader an insight into a world at once distant and profoundly close to home. The seven chapters, entitled Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe, Paradise, open with fiction and close with reflection. They blend reflections of travels through fen, forest and cave, with retelling of medieval texts that offer rich depictions of the natural world. From the Old English elegies to the englynion and immrama of the Celtic world these are stories that largely represent figures whose voices are not generally heard in the corpus of medieval literature: women, outcasts, animals. Illustrated with original wood engravings, evoking an atmospheric world of whales, wolves, caves, cuckoos and reeds, Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain will leave readers with a feeling of 'westendream': delight in the wilderness. Saints: Medieval Legends of Heroes Humans and Magic is now available!

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9781529424263

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Reviews

A beautiful retelling of British myths and exquisitely illustrated too. -- James Holland on Storyland, Daily Express (Book of the Year) This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from. -- The Times (On Storyland)

A beautiful retelling of British myths and exquisitely illustrated too. -- James Holland on Storyland, Daily Express (Book of the Year) This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from. -- The Times (On Storyland) Marries words and images to create a special echo of this country's rich past. * The Times *

A beautiful retelling of British myths and exquisitely illustrated too. -- James Holland on Storyland, Daily Express (Book of the Year) This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from. -- The Times (On Storyland) Marries words and images to create a special echo of this country's rich past. * The Times * Jeffs is the narrator, providing a reading that is suffused with portent and otherworldliness. Listeners gain a series of folk songs, written and performed by Jeffs, each of which adds a thrilling new dimension to these ancient fables. * Guardian (Audiobook of the Week) * Across seven themed chapters the Storyland author presents an inspiring excavation of the British countryside through diverse medieval texts. * Waterstones (The Best History Books of 2022) * Jeffs teases out nuance, divining moral and metaphorical meaning from each story, and questions ways that this living history of Britain impacts upon our present-day understanding of landscape. The writing throughout is celebratory and evocative. * Art Quarterly * Jeffs has a gift for breathing new life into ancient stories through her lyrical writing, deep research and evocative woodcuts. She connects our mythic history to the landscape with delicacy and humour. Reading Wild feels like being led by the hand through a gnarled, old growth forest, along empty shoreflats, and along the edge of windswept cliffs - and shown how to experience them through medieval eyes. It's a jewel of a book. -- Natalie Lawrence - co-author of Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence Immersive . . . Her stories are arranged across seven chapters - Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe and Paradise. Jeffs, a medieval scholar with her own wild streak, introduces each in confident, forceful tones. She also sings six of her songs, accompanied by early musical instruments. Lucy Paterson, who has one of those warm, low, rich voices that can hold you mesmerised, tells the tales. * The Times (Audiobook of the Week) * An extraordinarily multidimensional work, moving seamlessly from creative retellings of the stories to explanations of the texts and where they came from, underpinned all the time by sound academic understanding. Those reading the print version can marvel at the extraordinary black-and-white wood cuttings that break up the chapters, while those enjoying the audiobook version can listen to music inspired by the same tales. * Countryfile Magazine (Best nature and wildlife books for 2023) *

Author Information

Amy Jeffs is a Somerset-based author and artist, she has a PhD in Art History from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and specialises in medieval art and culture. Jeffs' first book, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain, was a Sunday Times bestseller, shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and named a Times Historical Fiction Book of the Year. Her second book, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain, explores an old idea of the wilderness through medieval stories of outcasts, monsters and the natural world. The audiobook, illustrated with song, was named audiobook of the week by the Times and the Guardian. Saints: Legends of Heroes, Humans and Magic is her third book.

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