A Literary Christmas An Anthology

by Library, British

• ISBN13: 9780712352765
• ISBN10: 0712352767
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2018-11-01
• Publisher: British Library Publishing

Summary

This seasonal compendium collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens's ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new—from John Donne's Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Benjamin Zephaniah's "Talking Turkeys," from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to P. G. Wodehouse's wry story about Christmas on a diet. Enjoy a Christmas Day as described by Samuel Pepys, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, or Nancy Mitford. Venture out into the snow in the company of Jane Austen, Henry James, and Dickens's Mr. Pickwick. Entertain the children with the seasonal tales of Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Grahame, and Oscar Wilde. 

Author Biography

British Library Publishing produces fascinating and beautiful books related to the Library's uniquely rich collections.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Clement Clarke Moore - A Visit from St Nicholas 2
Arnold Bennett - from The Feast of St Friend 4
Edward Thomas - The Gypsy 6
D.H. Lawrence - from Sons and Lovers 8
Laurie Lee - from Cider with Rosie 13
William Wordsworth - from The River Duddon 19
Emily Brontë - from Wuthering Heights 20
Charles Dickens - from A Christmas Carol 22
Thomas Hardy - The Oxen 26
Saki - Bertie’s Christmas Eve 27

THE NATIVITY

Christina Rossetti - A Christmas Carol 36
John Milton - from On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity 38
Elizabeth Barrett Browning - from The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus 40
G.K. Chesterton - A Christmas Carol 41
John Donne - Nativity 42

CHRISTMAS DAY

Samuel Pepys - from his Diary 44
Anne Brontë - Music on Christmas Morning 46
Anthony Trollope - from Orley Farm 48
Robert Louis Stevenson - Christmas at Sea 52
George Eliot - from The Mill on the Floss 54
Rudyard Kipling - Christmas in India 57
Thomas Haynes Bayly - The Mistletoe Bough 59
Nancy Mitford - from Christmas Pudding 61

CHRISTMAS FARE

Washington Irving - from ‘Old Christmas’ in The Sketch Book of Washington Irving 72
Charles Dickens - from A Christmas Carol 78
Thomas Tusser - Christmas Husbandly Fare from Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie 81
Benjamin Zephaniah - Talking Turkeys!! 82
P.G. Wodehouse - Another Christmas Carol 84

CHRISTMAS AT WAR

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Christmas Bells 94
Thomas Hardy - A Christmas Ghost-Story 96
Cyril Winterbotham - A Christmas Prayer 97
G.K. Chesterton - The Truce of Christmas 99
W.H. Davies - The Holly on the Wall 101

A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS

Dylan Thomas - from A Child’s Christmas in Wales 104
Kenneth Grahame - from The Wind in the Willows 107
Richard Middleton - The Carol of the Poor Children 112
Louisa May Alcott - from Little Women 113
George Mackay Brown - The Lost Boy 118

SEASONAL SNOW AND ICE

John Evelyn - from his Diary 124
John Gay - from Trivia: or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London 127
Henry James - from English Hours 128
William Shakespeare - from As You Like It 131
Jane Austen - from Emma 132
William Makepeace Thackeray - The Mahogany Tree 136
Charles Dickens - from The Pickwick Papers 139

NEW YEAR

Percy Bysshe Shelley - Dirge for the Year 146
Robert Herrick - Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve 147
Thomas Hood - Sonnet 148
Alfred Tennyson - Ring Out, Wild Bells from In Memoriam 150