Lucy au repos

January is for hibernating.

A friend said that in an email the other day and my heart warmed with her understanding and sympathy. For many folks, January is a new beginning, a fresh leap off into resolutions and enthusiasms. But for me it is a deep dormancy. All the things I put off during the happy chaos of the holidays must needs be attended to, of course. The wreck of my schedule has to be hauled up and inspected for repairs, and the daily round of work and rest resumed. But nothing desperate or urgent—not in January. No unnecessary deadlines; no high-flown expectations. The energy I give so gladly to the celebration of Christmas has to be replenished somehow, I’ve learned, and I have to make room for the gentle melancholy that always accompanies the close of such a happy time. I’ve actually come to anticipate January in its own right as a season of self-nurturing after such a season of self-giving. They both have their place, and I am grateful that this January has been a space of quiet within which to get my bearings again, consult my maps, and make ready for open waters once more.

Twelfth Night, 2012

I took my own sweet time wrapping beloved decorations in tissue paper for another year and winding lustrous ribbons on their spools. And I’m almost finished with my thank you notes!

Counts and recounts of my grandmother’s silver which I borrowed from my mother for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities, and the half-happy, half-sad replacement of all the little bits and bots that were stowed in favor of crèches and bottle brush trees—these have been the major accomplishments of this month. Oh, and a wild and free frenzy of journaling. There is space now in that overstuffed head of mine for new thoughts to seed and old thoughts to take root. (And now, if I could just go for about a month or two without any new ideas, perhaps I’d have a chance of catching up on the ones I’ve already had!)

Good company: Lamb, Traherne and Goudge

Books have been my gentle companions this month. The essays of Charles Lamb, Elizabeth Goudge’s autobiography, Thomas Traherne’s quietly majestic Centuries.

The first Lord Peter Wimsey detective novel, published in 1923

Philip and I have also started a new Lord Peter Wimsey novel, Whose Body? Dorothy Sayers is an old friend, but we’ve savored her detective stories slowly over the years, in the face of the very real temptation to race through them all in a mad surfeit of enjoyment. We hate to think of a time when there’s no new Lord Peter story on our horizon, but I imagine by then we’ll have sufficient distance to start them all over again. (But even at this point in our Wimsey career, we both think it safe to say that none will ever eclipse Gaudy Night.)

french studies

I have really loved resuming my study of French now that things have settled down a bit. (The only real ‘studying’ I did in December was learning a few French carols.) It’s been a joy with charming old readers, an exquisite book which I received as a Christmas gift from a dear friend, and a husband with whom to converse about one’s day en français.

Kilmeny of the Orchard, Low Door Press 2011

Low Door Press will start rolling again in February. I am so excited to have my hands in the bookbinding process once more, and to turn out more copies of Kilmeny of the Orchard. And I am also in the serious planning stages of the next project!

This old girl was so dirty when I found her that Philip wasn't too sure. She sure cleaned up beautifully.

I just have to share one of my newest treasures, this Lake platter that I picked up in a junk shop in Devon for a few pounds. I rescued it from its grime-covered condition and made it my carry-on coming home on the airplane—I was too worried that it would get broken in my suitcase. Besides, my suitcase was filled with books! This dear old platter has already instated itself as an heirloom: I used it to serve both my Thanksgiving turkey and my Christmas ham!

And, finally, we saw a movie Saturday night that I am still glowing over. The Artist is a sheer miracle of old Hollywood enchantment and I loved every second of it. It felt very surreal to be sitting in a 21st-century theater watching a film that looked and felt like it had been made in the 1920s. This movie is a love song to the classic art of film, and to the talented men and women who made the magic. A dashing hero, a gorgeous and spirited leading lady, a tender love story and all the beauty and glamour of radiant black and white–I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the Rose, is on the way.

Eleanor Farjeon

It has been a Christmas of gold and silver dawns, spiced keen and fragrant by frost; of hushed twilights that wash my little world in a glory of rose-light before fading into the heart-piercing loveliness of a lavender dusk. It has been a Christmas for French carols at the piano and reunions so happy they hurt and red velvet ribbons tied around oranges and homemade candy with specific loved ones in mind. A Christmas of pretty dresses and lazy breakfasts by the fire. Of catnip mice and flaming plum pudding and a host of small children in Christmas finery chasing one another around my backyard in the pale gilding of a winter afternoon. It has been a Christmas for bright new things and blessed old things.

And it has been a Christmas for roses.

I knew that well before the season was upon us, back in the clear, longing spaces of November. I knew it by the thrill of Hope that is the faithful herald of this most beloved of times. And I knew it by the searing stab of that thorn which I’ve carried with me for so long and which only seems to press more deeply into my heart during this season which I love best. I can trace the state of my soul in years past by the Christmases which called for roses. And this was definitely one of them.

Roses at Christmas are my personal statement of faith; my version of perfume, lavished before the coming King. They are my profession that all is well—not because life is perfect or every desire has been accomplished, but because He is. Because He came among us, and He’s still here when Christmas is over. They are my confession that Christmas is not about me and that the wilderness will blossom as the rose, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. I need to be reminded of these things—often. And I am such a visual person that the sight of roses mingling among my Christmas greens is a constant grounding, a tangible witness of His beauty, present even in the desert places of our lives.

Thou meetest him that rejoiceth, and worketh righteousness… For years now that has been the standard I have borne before me in all my preparations for Christmas; a torch flaming in the darkness. And He does meet us, in our most broken places. And He does work wonders—miracles—even if they are so hidden in the depths of our hearts only He can see them. But miracles, no less.

Christmas roses are my way of taking joy; a wordless ‘thank You’ and ‘I love You’ and ‘Come quickly’ spelled out in blood-red blooms couched amid a nest of ivy leaves and thorn-crowned holly.

The frozen air perfuming
That tiny bloom doth swell ;
Its rays the night illuming,
The darkness quite dispel.
O flower beyond compare
Bloom in our heart’s midwinter;
Restore the springtime there.

Theodore Baker

". . . for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself." ~Charles Dickens

It has been such a beautiful Adventide, bright with times to keep. Like sitting by the fire with a little clutch of beloved friends all in formal evening dress, sipping eggnog and discussing the Incarnation. Like watching the late afternoon sun warm the walls of the Cathedral downtown while the old, old Story was told again in Lessons and Carols. Like the sudden catch in my throat at the words of O Holy Night in French.

My only complaint, as always, is that it’s going by too fast. I make such a desperate effort to cling to the golden hours even as they fly, and for me that means several concrete things: savoring each loved yearly task and making the effort in the act to be aware of why I’m doing it; as many quiet evenings by the fire together as possible, reading aloud or listening to favorite Christmas records; scribbling like mad in my journal, snatching at precious things with words woefully inadequate for such glory but which, I hope, will evoke the magic of this particular season in later years. It’s always so interesting for me to consider that so much that I love about Christmas is the same from year to year, reborn in the bright beauty of this shining today, so old and so ever-new. Things may be far from perfect in our January-to-November lives; the coming of another New Year may only serve to sharpen the sting of unmet desire and yet-to-be-fulfilled longings. And yet, Christmas comes in with a flourish, holly-crowned and ivy-dressed, glittering with diamond frosts to rival the brightness of any store bought baubles, insistent in its message of Joy despite our human efforts to reduce it to a meaningless round of going and doing and spending.

It’s that indomitable Yes of Christmas that makes me love it more than any other season of the year. With the birth of Christ, God literally astounded the human race with His love. A Light that can never be extinguished penetrated our darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Dayspring has visited us, and left His everlasting mark on our world. As far as I’m concerned, that is something to celebrate with all of my heart and most of my strength (hence the shocking shortage of posts around here—I’m sorry, friends). I heard a fantastic sermon early on in the season about John the Baptist and how the whole mission of his life was simply to point to Jesus. That concept captured my heart, and it really has been my desire and prayer that all this love I’m lavishing on my dear ones might simply serve as a finger pointing to the honored Host ‘of all this reveling.’ A lofty goal, no doubt, and one I have to keep bringing myself back to. But His grace is so good. And His beauty gilds the most ordinary things.

"Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart." ~ Washington Irving

And so I have been baking and cooking and polishing and trimming like mad. Armloads of holly have been carted inside and dragged through the rooms on a sheet to adorn the tops of pictures, and tiny boxwood rings crown my hurricanes and votives. My freezer is stuffed with enough casseroles and cookies and treats to feed two small armies (one on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas Day) and I’ve ironed about a thousand damask napkins. Even as I write, I have one eye on a pot of fragrant, simmering gingerbread caramels, and another on cinnamon rolls rising on the counter. There is still so much to do: a last minute freshening of greenery, fashioning the cedar wreaths for the barn animals’ Christmas treat, making the plum pudding, wrapping gifts (I haven’t wrapped the first one!)…

"Christmas is the day that holds all time together." ~Alexander Smith

But for tonight, I’m going to cease the glad doing and just sit and stare at my tree with a wonder undiminished by the years. Maybe spin a crackly old Robert Shaw album on the turntable. And just keep Christmas.

I wish you all the very Merriest of Christmases, and as a little gift, I’d like to share this carol that I recorded with my friend Rachel. Our original inspiration was the lovely, almost breathlessly-quiet John Rutter rendition, but our accompanist (who also happened to be her brother) insisted on spicing things up a bit. The funny thing is that we two rather stodgy Christmas-music-traditionalists liked it better his way, when it was all said and done. I confess, I halted over sharing it, because I am flat on the first note (!). But it’s such a dear song. And, this of all times of the year, it’s not about Perfect.

It’s about Love.

I Saw a Maiden

"All pioneers are considered to be afflicted with moonstruck madness." ~Gilbert Blythe

It all started two years ago.

In truth, it started well before that, probably back in my childhood, when I would pore longingly over the crafts section in my Highlights magazine, laying on my bedroom floor with my chin propped on my arms. From my earliest memories, I have always loved to fashion things with my hands. Some of my most famous and oft-repeated last words have been, “I could make that.” Sometimes it’s a delightful and satisfying success. And other times it’s a delightful mess that ends up under the bed or in a dark corner of the attic. But come weal or woe, I’m never so happy as when my fingers are into something—glue, paint, Christmas greens, garden dirt, flour.

I’m sometimes even tempted to write with a quill pen so that I’d have some of those lovely Jo March ink stains to proclaim my vocation to the world.

But this particular madness started two years ago.

I had been daydreaming out loud to Philip about this dancing vision I had. It was so absurd I couldn’t help being enchanted by it: A small-scale run of books made entirely by hand. Was it possible? Was it even remotely financially feasible?

Was I crazy?

I’ll never forget Philip’s reply. He looked straight at me and smiled.

“We can do this,” he said.

And, oh, how I love that ‘we’. It has made all the difference.

In January of 2010 we made a plan. I selected a public domain text for the first run and began to acquaint myself with the mysteries and mazes of Adobe InDesign. I read everything I could on the craft of bookbinding, and schemed over how I could maneuver a one-at-a-time process into a multiple copy run.

Philip built the presses for me—and there is a world of love contained in that one little phrase. He made them all by hand and set me up with everything I would need to make books. I still just sit in my shop sometimes and gloat over my tools, they are so beautiful. (And I realize, in bookbinding as in other arts, that I love the instruments and devices as much as what is produced by them. I get a little giddy over things like English bookbinding needles and Irish linen thread.)

“Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have—for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.” ~L.M. Montgomery

As the year went on, that ‘we’ expanded to a circle of dear and extremely talented folks. My amazing and artistic brother-in-law taught me how to use that ornery old InDesign, and spent hours on the phone with me, sending files back and forth, and formatting things exactly the way I wanted them. My sister—the one who introduced me to book arts in the first place—designed the logo for my press. And she created two supremely gorgeous original oil paintings to illustrate my book: one for the cover plate and one for the frontispiece. Local letterpress artisans and dear friends, Matt and Erica Hinton, helped me figure out how in the wide world we could deboss and imprint so many cases at once, and Matt invested literal days into making it work. The result of his labors took my breath. I am overwhelmed at the support and excitement these people lent to my project, and deeply grateful for the mark of their talents upon it.

And so, on this December day, in the year of our Lord 2011, I am pleased to introduce the first release of Low Door Press:

Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery

“I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people know more... though I know that is the noblest ambition... but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me... to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born.” ~L.M. Montgomery

I selected this title for many reasons, chief of which being that I fell in love with it as an impressionable teenager, and I wanted to honor Montgomery herself and her influence on my life with an affectionately handcrafted edition of her second book.

I was sixteen years old when I first made the acquaintance of Kilmeny Gordon. I had known her older sister, Anne Shirley, for about four years at the time, and the blessed hours I had spent in her company had given me a love for Lucy Maud Montgomery and her writings that was akin to reverence—a reverence which remains steadfast to this day.

from my preface

The pages are acid-free rag content and the signatures were folded and sewn entirely by hand onto cotton tapes with Irish bookbinder’s thread. I used an archival PVA book glue and traditional English mull for the binding, and the headbanding at the head and tail of the spine are silk. The book cloth is Dover linen and the endpapers are Italian cotton. As I have mentioned, the artwork is from original oils painted by my sister, and the cases were individually debossed and inked on an early-twentieth century engraver’s press. I would not even be able to begin to say how many hours went into each book, but I can avow that every one of them was a labor of love.

So why would I attempt something so crazy? Am I glutton for punishment or a moonstruck lunatic?

Neither, I hope. But I am a lover of beauty and the God who authored it. And I long, like all of us, in my small way, to contribute to His great canvas of beauty that overspreads the world in spite of all the evil and darkness and ugliness. In the face of it, really. My brush is quite small, more suited to details, but I want to ply it with a confident hope that it matters. That in a world of automation and plastic and hurry, there is still a place for something impractical and time consuming and existing only for love. Ruskin said the most beautiful things in life are often the most useless. “Peacocks and lilies for instance.”

And maybe even handmade books.

“Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.” ~L.M. Montgomery

I am listing 15 copies of Kilmeny of the Orchard today. (There will be more in the shop after Christmas.) Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, I can only sell them to residents of the U.S. Thank you for your understanding.

My writing partner wrote this loving tribute to my Kilmeny, if you’d care to read it. And while you’re at it, do yourself a favor and enjoy her endearing daily raptures celebrating her love for this holy season of Advent…

"The darling of the world is come..." R. Herrick

I say this every year, but how I wish that I could freeze time. Just now, in this very moment. Still on the sweet, breathless cusp of it all, with the days stretching out in gilded promise, glitter sparkling behind the closed doors of the Advent calendar and fresh bits of holly and greens appearing throughout my house by the day.

I’ve been making gingerbread cookies for the Christmas tree today, and weaving delightfully wonky little cedar wreaths for my kitchen windows. I cut a branch of holly I’ve been eyeing for weeks for the arrangement I always put on the big Empire chest in our bedroom and I ironed my rather tattered but dearly-loved silk ribbons and tied them on the arms of the chandelier in huge, drooping bows.

My fingers are marked with the battle scars of encounters with prickly greens, and even that seems a thing to rejoice in.

Soon the memories and tender joys of this Christmas will join the ranks of all the loved Christmases past. But I am determined to keep this precious time with all my heart, even as it flies. My heart’s deep prayer as I enter into this most sacred season is that I will just love my Savior well in all this happy hullabaloo of preparation. I crave a spirit like that of Brother Lawrence, who made a life practice of acknowledging the presence of Christ and lifting all tasks to Him even in the doing of them.

The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen…I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees.

That is my ambition, by the grace of God: to prepare my heart and my home for the coming of Love itself.

Happy waiting, dear friends…

"To do Him honor, who's our King, and Lord of all this reveling..." R. Herrick

I agree wholeheartedly with Jodi’s sentiments about November over on Curious Acorn. (Y’all, get to know her if you don’t already. She is one of my best-beloveds.) It is truly one of my favorite months, second only to that holly-crowned queen of a December. Strangely enough, however, I seem to forget just how splendidly I love it until it rolls around again in its modest way, stealing up so quietly I almost don’t realize it’s there until I’m in the midst of it.

“How can it be November again?” I always ask myself.

And why is the year so inexpressibly, unbearably beautiful in its slow death? I am tempted to say that even the wild greening of late April is unable to compare with the loveliness of blood-red dogwoods and ambered hickories. The scent of woodsmoke and decaying leaves is enough to bring tears to my eyes, and there’s a wistfulness to the angle of the light that brings out every detail of the landscape with the fineness of a delicate etching.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot

Autumn color doesn’t arrive full glory till November here in Dixie, but when it does, you forgive her any delay. The sassafras is scarlet, the grapevine is golden, and the trees of the field seem a very rhapsody of crimson and flame. All but the cedars and the pines–they are deepening and intensifying their greens to an almost blue-bloom of freshness, in readiness for their great honor come December…

There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been! ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

When I’m adorning my table, I always look to seasonal fruit and garden offerings. This little arrangement from a very special luncheon is a combination of damson plums, mistflowers, Japanese maple and and peegee hydrangeas clipped from my mother’s yard. I do love hydrangeas best in the fall, when their hues have mellowed into the pale greens and rust-tipped ivories that remind me of Jasperware.

I know the lands are lit with all the autumn blaze of goldenrod. ~Helen Hunt Jackson

This old mill we stumbled upon in Cornwall a couple of years ago makes me think of George Eliot's Dorlcote Mill.

There is no author I love better in late autumn than George Eliot. Her poignant insights and descriptions fit my mood like a glove. Right now I’m reading The Mill on the Floss, and, while I’m not sure where the plot’s going, she has given me enough clues already to suspect that Maggie Tulliver’s way in life will not necessarily be strewn with roses. I am literally savoring the words, she writes so beautifully.

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,–if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn’s hedgerows; the same redbreasts that we used to call “God’s birds,” because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

"O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being. Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

November also means certain tasks in preparation for Christmas, like ironing the linens, giving a shine to all the sconce globes, and polishing the silver. I have to confess–I absolutely love polishing silver. There is nothing like the satisfaction of taking something deplorable and dingy and making it sparkle again. There’s a parable right before me every single year as I’m buffing loved things into brilliance once more with a soft cotton cloth.

And lest you think I’m a glutton for punishment, I will let you in on a little secret that a friend of mine shared with me several years ago that has upgraded the act of polishing silver from a job to a literal magic act: Put your kettle on to boil. Then line your sink with aluminum foil and sprinkle it with a generous cup or two of baking soda. When the water is boiling, pour it over the baking soda in the sink and immerse your silver into the sizzling brew. I promise, if you haven’t seen it before, you won’t believe your eyes. The tarnish literally vanishes. Try dipping a corner of a tray or an edge of a plate just to underscore the magic. It is so amazing, and all that remains is to rinse and polish with a nice, soft, dry cloth.

For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. ~L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Another thing that November has come to mean is novelling. Yes, that is a verb. Just ask Chris Baty, founder of National Novel Writing Month, endearingly known as NaNoWriMo. I’ve done it in the past, and it has definitely left its mark. So much so, that my writing partner and I have spent a couple of mad Novembers scribbling frantically after a ridiculous goal we have set for ourselves. And holding each other accountable over the finish line.

We’re at it again this November. I’m plowing through a rewrite of the draft I started last winter. And she’s off on the adventure of a new book. (And trust me–hers is going to be good. You can say that you heard it here first.) The actual word-flow has not been quite the youthful garrulousness of that first NaNoWriMo spree. But it taught me, as I believe nothing else could have, to just keep putting the words down. One after another. That’s all we can do, really. The rest is not our business…

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many--not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. ~Charles Dickens

In closing, I would just like to wish you all the Happiest of Thanksgivings, the crown of this month of blessings.

God be with you all, friends.

In 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff said that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for.

It’s true. It’s there.

The England we look for is the England of books and poetry and landscapes of an almost mythical loveliness. Bowered lanes and hedgerows that were familiar before we ever laid eyes on them and hilltops brooding with legends that are true. We’re seeking the almost implausible beauty of a green and pleasant land, and the music of angels in echo-haunted cathedrals.

Something draws us and something breaks our hearts when we leave. Something holds us there, even in our delight at being here. Something about England stirs within us a holy discontent, a homesickness, an untamed vein of Tookishness that never lets us forget that Life is spilling into Eternity.

In the truest sense, we are looking for Home. And while it is inexpressibly, undeniably here, it’s also there.

“It is England we love, we Americans,” she had said to her father. “What could be more natural? We belong to it—it belongs to us. I could never be convinced that the old tie of blood does not count. All nationalities have come to us since we became a nation, but most of us in the beginning came from England. We are touching about it, too. We trifle with France and labour with Germany, we sentimentalise over Italy and ecstacise over Spain—but England we love. How it moves us when we go to it, how we gush if we are simple and effusive, how we are stirred imaginatively if we are of the perceptive class. I have heard the commonest little half-educated woman say the prettiest, clumsy, emotional things about what she has seen there. A New England schoolma’am, who has made a Cook’s tour, will almost have tears in her voice as she wanders on with her commonplaces about hawthorn hedges and thatched cottages and white or red farms. Why are we not unconsciously pathetic about German cottages and Italian villas? Because we have not, in centuries past, had the habit of being born in them. It is only an English cottage and an English lane, whether white with hawthorn blossoms or bare with winter, that wakes in us that little yearning, grovelling tenderness that is so sweet. It is only nature calling us home.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Shuttle

Beloved Oxford-town, as golden as ever.

Port Meadow, Oxford

The Roman Road, Dorset.

The view from the hilltop of the farm we stayed on in Dorset. I pretty much lived up here.

The exquisite Temple of Apollo folly at Stourhead Gardens, Somerset

The church at Stourhead. It was all decked out for a wedding and was fragrant with lilies and roses inside.

An idyllic September afternoon and the magic of English light.

Watching the sunset at Stourhead.

The Cobb at Lyme Regis, made famous by Lydia Musgrove's ill-judged leap in Jane Austen's Persuasion.

"Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn..."

Eggardon Hill, an Iron Age hill fort in Dorset.

"A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread..."

Kingston Lacy, a beautiful Restoration manor in Dorset.

Kingston Lacy is famous for its outstanding collection of art, including paintings by Titian and Rubens.

Montacute, a medieval manor house in Somerset.

The library at Montacute.

"Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road..."

It's there, Thanks be to God. And our souls are the better for it.

I am excited to announce that the new collection of books, garnered during my recent travels in England, are in the Shop!

Philip and I had so much fun scouring the countryside for the authors and titles suited to my little niche of a shop—he has become quite the book scout, able to spot a first-edition Goudge or a rare Elizabeth Gaskell a mile off. As the stacks kept mounting in our little Dorset cottage, we both wondered (I, rather mildly; Philip with a bit more concentration) how under heaven we were going to get them home. Let’s just say it was an adventure, and not always of the un-harrowing sort. But they have all safely immigrated to The Colonies, now, and are ready to be dispatched to homes of their own.

People often ask me how I can bear to part with my books. Well, my answer is two-fold. For one thing, sometimes I can’t. There was definitely a small but growing pile of books destined for a forever home with me. I think I bought half of my book club reading list at my favorite Evergreen Livres in the Cotswolds, with a couple more as candidates for the next list on special recommendation from the proprietress. But there is always the immense satisfaction and joy of turning up a really beautiful book that I know one of my customers will love. I have been so blessed to be admitted into so many of your personal tastes and affinities, and I genuinely consider it an honor to connect worthy books with those who cherish them.  I have said this before, but the books in my shop are there because I can vouch for them, because I have a long-standing confidence in the author or because I know that particular title to be of merit, literary, moral, or otherwise.

There are several new Gaskells in inventory, including some really nice early 20^th-century copies. I also have a number of beautiful volumes illustrated by the beloved artist, Hugh Thomson. Working chiefly with the Macmillan Press in London, Thomson typified the gentle nostalgia of such classics as Cranford and the works of Jane Austen with drawings that expressed the sentiment and sensibility of days gone by. (I, for one, admit to a distinct weakness for anything that has his name on it—I just love the way that he captured the flounce on a skirt or a coy rural meeting, awakening a reader’s imagination in perfect sympathy with the original intent of the author.)

Of course, there are new Elizabeth Goudge titles, as well as some really nice George Eliots. Also, several sweet little editions of English poetry, including Robert Herrick and George Herbert. And Dickens lovers will be happy to know that dear old ‘Boz’ is well-represented among the latest acquisitions. If I didn’t already have a copy of The Old Curiosity Shop I fear I wouldn’t be able to let that one go…

So, have a look around—remember to sort by ‘Date Added’—and please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any questions about any of the books. I will do my best to answer them.

I’ve been there and back again, which will hopefully account for my relative silence around here the past month or so.

"Fairest Isle, all isles excelling..."

But I’m home now, blessedly so, even though I left the Fairest Isle behind me, and I’m overflowing with memories and stories. Once the jetlag has abated somewhat and the suitcases have been stowed and the mountains of laundry have diminished, I will be back with some of the lovely things I’ve picked up along the way.

My heart is so full and its treasures so carefully wrapped in the sprawling illegibility of ink-scribbled pages. I am looking forward to unpacking some of them here for you.

And, oh, my goodness gracious–the BOOKS! I cannot wait for you to see them! All throughout our travels I kept my eyes open for just the right sort for my little shop. I hope to begin listing them this weekend, and I promise a post-proper when I do.

Until then, my friends. God bless.