A Literary Christmas

An Anthology

The British Library

A Literary Christmas
Bookmark and Share

The British Library

Distributed for British Library

160 pages | 30 halftones | 6 x 8 1/2
Cloth $19.95 ISBN: 9780712309684 Will Publish October 2013 For sale in North and South America only
For as long as Christmas has been celebrated, poets and writers have sought to explore every aspect of it, from the story of the nativity to the festive traditions families worldwide have established over the centuries. And such works have forever changed the way we think about the holiday. Where would Christmas be today without Ebenezer Scrooge or “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”?  
           
A Literary Christmas is a seasonal compendium that collects poems, short stories, and prose by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’s Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, the selections featured here are representative of times old and new. Readers will enjoy a convivial Christmas Day with Samuel Pepys, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Nancy Mitford; venture out into the snow in the company of Jane Austen, Henry James, and Charles Dickens’s ever-popular Mr. Pickwick; and warm up by the fire with the seasonal tales of Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Grahame, and Oscar Wilde. As a companion to the book, A Literary Christmas is also being released as a two-CD set, featuring readings of many of the same poems and prose extracts from the book.
             
An entertaining and instructive way to survey great literature, A Literary Christmas is the perfect gift for anyone seeking to start their own literary Christmas traditions.
Contents

A  BEFORE CHRISTMAS

 

1. Clement Clarke Moore: The Night Before Christmas

 

2. Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol [extract]

 

3. Arnold Bennett: The Feast of St Friend [extract]

 

4. Laurie Lee: Cider with Rosie [extract]

 

5. William Wordsworth: Minstrels

 

6. Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights [extract]

 

7. Thomas Hardy: The Oxen

 

8. Edward Thomas: The Gypsy

 

9. D H Lawrence: Sons and Lovers [extract]

 

10. Saki: Bertie’s Christmas Eve

 

 

B  THE NATIVITY

 

11. Christina Rossetti: A Christmas Carol

 

12. John Milton: On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity

 

13. John Donne: Nativity

 

14. William Blake: A Cradle Song

 

15. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Holy Night

 

16. G K Chesterton: A Christmas Carol

 

 

C  AT CHRISTMAS

 

17. Samuel Pepys: Diary. 25 December 1662

 

18. Anne Bronte: Music on Christmas Morning

 

19. Anthony Trollope: Orley Farm [extract]

 

20. Robert Louis Stevenson: Christmas at Sea

 

21. George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss [extract]

 

22. Thomas Haynes Bayley: The Mistletoe Bough

 

23. Rudyard Kipling: Christmas in India

 

24. Nancy Mitford: Christmas Pudding [extract]

 

 

D  CHRISTMAS FOOD AND DRINK

 

25. Washington Irving: Christmas Dinner [extract]

 

26. Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol [extract]

 

27. Thomas Tusser: Christmas Cheer

 

28. Theodore Watts-Dunton: Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid      Tavern

 

29. Benjamin Zephaniah: Talking Turkeys

 

30. P G Wodehouse: Another Christmas Carol

 

 

E  CHRISTMAS AT WAR

 

31. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Christmas bells

 

32. Thomas Hardy: A Christmas Ghost-story

 

33. Wilfred Owen: Winter Song

 

34. Cyril Winterbotham: Christmas Prayer [From the Trenches]

 

35. G K Chesterton: The Truce of Christmas

 

36. W H Davies: The Holly on the wall

 

 

F  A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS

 

37. Dylan Thomas: A Child’s Christmas in Wales [extract]

 

38. Kenneth Grahame: Wind in the Willows [extract]

 

39. Louisa May Alcott: Little Women [extract]

 

40. Richard Middleton: The Carol of the poor children

 

41. George Mackay Brown: The lost boy

 

 

F  CHRISTMAS ICE AND SNOW

 

42. John Evelyn: Diary [extract]

 

43. John Gay: Trivia [extract]

 

44. Henry James: English Hours [extract]

 

45. William Shakespeare: As You Like It [extract]

 

46. Jane Austen: Emma [extracts]

 

47. William Makepeace Thackeray: The Mahogany Tree

 

48. Charles Dickens: Pickwick Papers [extract]

 

 

G  NEW YEAR

 

49. Percy Bysshe Shelley: Dirge for the Year

 

50. A E Housman: New Year’s Eve

 

51. Thomas Hood: Christmas Holidays

 

52. Alfred Tennyson: Ring out, wild bells

 

53. Robert Herrick: Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve

 

54. Robert Burns: Auld Lang Syne

 

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
Google preview here

Literature and Literary Criticism:

You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.

Chicago Manual of Style |

RSS Feed

RSS feed of the latest books from British Library. RSS Feed