Susan Engel
Christmas brings out the best and worst in us, as can be seen in this evocative anthology. Among what Thomas Love Peacock calls the ‘many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas’ there are eulogies by saints and diatribes from curmudgeons. Here, Christmas is expounded by divines, sung by rustics, deplored by philosophers, made mystical in stories and summed up in a line by the poet Elizabeth Jenkins: ‘The hush, the star, the baby,
...Here is a perfect coupling for those Christmas evenings of Christmas journeys. The greatest Christmas story is Dickens’ A Christmas Carol which has never lost its charm as Scrooge learns compassion and love.
The Christmas Collection is a varied, well chosen selection of words, stories, essays, poems and reflections made by writer Christina Hardyment.
Features music by Britten, Corelli, and traditional carols.