Customer Reviews

Images of Christmas

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Through the pages of this beautiful book, the traditions, memories and feelings associated with Christmas are evoked. Eliane Wilson has sensitively chosen a number of British and American writers (and a few from Europe) to present the different aspects, sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, and at other times through a carol complete with its musical setting.

Dorothy Boux has added a fresh dimension, using her quill pen to transcribe every page in calligraphy, embellishing each with an original drawing and making subtle use of colour to convey the different moods of each passage.

The selection contains traditional and modern material from Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Betjeman, Emerson, Longfellow, Robert Frost and many others, some movingly familiar (but not hackneyed), others which might come as a pleasent discovery for the reader.

The book opens with the mystic atmosphere surrounding the birth of Christ, followed by the tenderness and peace radiating from the cradle as the child id visited by the magi and shepherds.

Then Christmas as a joyful family occasion, gathered round the fire, with the Christmas Tree, decorations and presents. The excitement of the children - all these things are so familiar in the words of Hans Christian Anderson, Dylan Thomas, A.A. Milne - and the food, including George Washington's dinner at Mount Vernon and Mrs. Beeton's Plum pudding.

There is also the nostalgia and loneliness of a soldier at war on Christmas Day and of a sailor at sea. The book concludes with a beautiful letter written during the Italian Renaissance which is a hymn to peace, life and love.