This seasonal compendium collects together poems, short stories, and
prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English
language. Like Charles Dickens's ghosts of Christmas Past and Present,
they are representative of times old and new--from John Donne's
Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Benjamin Zephaniah's "Talking
Turkeys," from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to P. G.
Wodehouse's wry story about Christmas on a diet. Enjoy a Christmas Day
as described by Samuel Pepys, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, or Nancy
Mitford. Venture out into the snow in the company of Jane Austen, Henry
James, and Dickens's Mr. Pickwick. Entertain the children with the
seasonal tales of Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Grahame, and Oscar Wilde.