Wild

by Amy Jeffs

£12.99

Nature; Poetry; Society

Paperback

9781529424263

Published by Quercus Publishing

Published April 2023

Books > Nature > Poetry

Tales from Early Medieval Britain

Sheer cliffs, salt spray, explosive sea spume, thunderous clouds, icy waves, whales with mountains on their backs, sleet, bitter winds, bleak, impenetrable marshes, howling wolves, forests, the unceasing cries of birds and the death grip of subterranean vaults that have never seen the sun: these are wild landscapes of a world almost familiar.

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, Fen, Forest, Beast, Ocean, 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, the Welsh Englynion, the Norse poetic Edda – 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 will leave readers feeling ‘westendream’: delight in the wilderness.

Spring by Michael Morpurgo | 9781399728843

Spring

Michael Morpurgo

£16.99

Our Oaken Bones by Merlin Hanbury-Tenison | 9781529144222

Our Oaken Bones

Merlin Hanbury-Tenison

£22.00

Time and Tide by Fiona Stafford | 9781473686342

Time and Tide

Fiona Stafford

£10.99

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton | 9781805302711

Raising Hare

Chloe Dalton

£18.99

The Hidden Language of Cats by Sarah Brown | 9781405957960

The Hidden Language of Cats

Sarah Brown

£10.99

Bob the Robin by Tony Putman | 9781856755313

Bob the Robin

Tony Putman

£16.99