The Haunted Wood Signed Bookplate Edition

‘One of the best surveys of children’s literature I’ve read. It takes a particular sort of sensibility to look at children’s literature with all the informed knowledge of a lifetime’s reading of ‘proper’ books, and neither patronise (terribly good for a children’s book) nor solemnly over-praise. Sam Leith hits the right spot again and again.The Haunted Wood is a marvel, and I hope it becomes a standard text for anyone interested in literature of any sort.’ —Philip Pullman

'Profoundly erudite and gloriously entertaining, this is the most purely enjoyable literary history I have ever read.' —Tom Holland

 

'A delight…. an informative and illuminating journey into children’s books and their creators.' —Julia Donaldson

 

'Leith writes not with the voice of a scholar – although he’s certainly done his homework – but a born storyteller. I stayed up past bedtime three nights in a row to find out what happened next. You never feel that Leith is doing it by numbers: the fun and love shine through... This treasure chest of a book is packed with golden nuggets... Leith’s The Haunted Wood captures the magic of childhood reading and casts a spell of its own.' —Laura Freeman, The Times

'A wonderful book that rediscovers the magic of childhood reading and explores the complexity of some of our best loved authors.' —Nina Stibbe

'Sam Leith has been encyclopedic and forensic in this journey through children's books. It's a joy for anyone who cares or wonders why we have children's literature.' —Michael Rosen

'Seriously delightful, and delightfully serious... all of us who love to read started here, and Sam Leith does a wonderful job of reminding us how and why it happened.' —Lee Child

'Scholarly but wholly accessible and written with such love, The Haunted Wood is an utter joy.' —Lucy Mangan

'A gorgeous, loving and, most of all, learned guide to the stories that make us who we are.' —Hadley Freeman

‘Magisterial and wonderfully entertaining … The vast arc of The Haunted Wood teems with literary life. Leith combines a delightfully engaging prose style with erudition and empathy. But even more importantly, the book vividly and infectiously conveys a rapturous excitement for stories that are the foundation stones of our engagement with the world – both real and imagined.’ —Lucy Lethbridge, Prospect

'How children imagine the world and how the world imagines children are questions of perennial interest. The process by which "children's literature" came to be a distinct phenomenon is central to understanding the issues; and here is an exuberant, very wide-ranging, irrepressibly funny, consistently insightful survey of that story, as much a delight to read as the best of its subject matter.' —Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

'A history as beguiling, peculiar and immersive as the field it describes – and the alluring, creepy woods into which it leads us, never to return…' —Lemony Snicket

'One of The Haunted Wood’s great strengths is Leith’s awareness of just how important children’s literature is, that the moral and political lessons it inculcates, or confirms — or in some cases dispels — are all the more vital for being preached in childhood... a terrific book, full of high-grade lit-crit and undimmed personal enthusiasm — I loved Leith’s story of being summoned upstairs by a child’s scream, only to find his eight-year-old daughter reading “that bit” in Charlotte’s Web.' —D.J. Taylor, Spectator (World)

'From Wordsworth to Wonderland, and the Hundred Acre Wood to Hogwarts, Sam Leith’s history of children’s literature is as surprising and playful as the stories themselves. Written in punchy, energetic prose, this isn’t only a set of love letters to the authors who have shaped generations of readers. It’s a reminder that their books continue to be little time machines that can transport even the most jaded of adults back to the imaginative world of childhood.' —Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author of The Story of Alice