Feel the force of winter and appreciate its beauty through this collection of the best writing on the season. Classic and contemporary fiction, non-fiction in the form of diaries, history and journals, and historic illustrations show different sides to winter. This is a wonderfully readable anthology specially selected to warm when ‘the north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow’.

With descriptions of the medieval winters from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and Malory through to the Thames frost-fairs of the seventeenth century; from the Scandinavian tundra to the deceptively simple genius of Jack London, winter here is shown in all its human significance. Some of the pieces will be wonderfully familiar, some will surprise and delight – share a Prohibition Christmas cocktail with Damon Runyon’s Dancing Dan, and load the sledges with ‘Banjo’ Paterson in Australia!