Birds: An Anthology
Hardcover – Illustrated, July 30 2020
by Jaqueline Mitchell
Thomas Hardy notes the thrush’s “full-hearted evensong of joy illimited.” Gilbert White observes how swallows sweep through the air but swifts “dash round in circles.” Rachel Carson watches sanderlings at the ocean’s edge, scurrying “across the beach like little ghosts.”
From early times, we have been entranced by the bird life around us. Including a wide range of authors from the eighteenth century onward, this anthology brings together poetry and prose in celebration of birds. These excerpts, arranged thematically, examine birds from many perspectives, recording their behavior, flight, song, and migration. Writers note changes across the seasons and in different habitats—in woodland and pasture, on river, shoreline, and at sea. In our own interactions with birds, these writers find common ground. From India to America, from China to Rwanda, writers marvel at the building of a long-tailed tit’s nest, the soaring eagle, the extraordinary feats of migration, and the pleasures to be found in our own gardens.
Including excerpts from Geoffrey Chaucer, Dorothy Wordsworth, Richard Jefferies, Charles Darwin, James Joyce, John Keats, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Anton Chekhov, Kathleen Jamie, and Barbara Kingsolver among many others, this anthology also features detailed black and white woodcut illustrations by British artist Eric Fitch Daglish. This rich collection will be welcomed by bird-lovers, country ramblers, and anyone who has taken comfort or joy in a bird in flight.
