The English Year : A Literary Journey Through the Seasons

`Hard is his heart that loveth naught in May' - Geoffrey Chaucer. 12 June: `Male glow-worms, attracted by the light of the candles, come into the parlour.

The distant hills look very blue' - Gilbert White, 1791. Join some of England's best-loved writers in this day-by-day celebration of an English year, from the frosty mornings of January through to the buds of spring and blooms of summer, from the autumn harvest to the festivities of Christmas.

Diary entries by literary figures such as Gilbert White, Dorothy Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy guide us through the year, accompanied by poems and quotations celebrating the changing seasons, and passages explaining the origins of some of our oldest festive traditions.