The Faber Book of Christmas - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 057117440X ISBN 13: 9780571174409

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1996

Synopsis

From the abundant writing on Christmas - historical, literary, popular, mythical - comes this eclectic anthology which includes familiar pieces by Betjeman, Auden, Hardy and Dickens, as well as more obscure extracts. The selection ranges from Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" to Wendy Cope's rueful "A Christmas Poem", and from accounts of Christmas Day at the North Pole to Christmas as celebrated by the England cricket team in Australia.

About this title

Review

A Christmas Poem

At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle,
The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle
And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle
And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful, if you're single.

--Wendy Cope

Simon Rae's brilliant The Faber Book of Christmas is a bold collection of musings on Christmas past, present and future and scopes the centuries for poems, stories, essays and anecdotes from the pens of the mighty, logging all the emotions that enforced merriment can bring on the hardworking soul. From musings on the traditional and sneaky peaks into the mindsets of those for whom Christmas is something of a chore, Rae pulls the likes of Wendy Cope and John Milton together with Auden and Dickens while scanning all things Jingle Bells across the world.

Rae maintains a reasonable balance between loving and loathing and presents a thoroughly subversive anthology which manages to cover just about every possible angle, leaving the reader in little doubt that whatever their own personal feelings about the onset of the tinsel and toyshop season, there is someone somewhere living the dream--or the nightmare--with them.

Intriguing, challenging and irreverent to the last, The Faber Book of Christmas, is a must-have for cynics seeking a source of razor-sharp quotations to cover all eventualities at the sherry-and-mince-pie reception but most of all its a spirited dip-into read that will long outlive the Christmas tree and Playstations. --Susan Harrison

Review

A wonderfully subversive anthology. (The TLS)

Simon Rae is as interested in the unorthodox as the traditional. (Independent on Sunday)

Bookworms will love these Christmas-inspired stories and poems (Stylist)

Exceptionally well-edited by Simon Rae, giving due space to the cons of Christmas as well as the pros... This consistently thought-provoking anthology, including a lot of well-chosen contemporary poetry alongside such familiar pleasures... Here's a Christmassy Christmas present that anybody, save perhaps William Brown, would enjoy.' (Evening Standard)

Beautifully produced, with an exquisite Liberty fabric cover and a ribbon marker. this is sure to become part of your traditional Christmas reading. (What's What)

A perfect gift for the ultimate bibliophile (Notting Hill & Holland Park Magazine)

Lock the door and dip into this book (Mature Times)

There's something here to amuse and interest Christmas-lovers, grinches, and everyone in between. (Gransnet)

A beautiful fabric-bound collection of Christmas stories and poems from writers as diverse as Jilly Cooper and Charles Dickens, produced in collaboration with Liberty. (Sarra Manning Red)

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 057117440X
• ISBN 13: 9780571174409
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480
• Editor: Rae Simon