My Favourite Stories of Lakeland

This work is taken from the "My Favourite" series - favourite stories on different themes by different authors, each volume edited by a celebrity in the field. "The stillness seemed to be not of this world...the majesty of the mountains below, and close to us, is not to be conceived. We now beheld the whole mass of Great Gavel from its base - the Den of Wastdale at our feet - a gulf immeasurable; Grasmere and the other mountains of Crummock; Ennerdale and its mountains; and the Sea beyond!" Wordsworth looking out from Scafell Pikes over the miles of rock and water which were his inspiration, opens this exhilarating collection of Lakeland stories. The power implicit in this stretch of country has long attracted great writers. Here came Dickens, to write a delectable story of two London apprentices worsted by a 'trumpery little mountain'; Coleridge, to delight in a fearsome rock climb; Beatrix Potter, to record with delicate precision the commonplaces of her daily life. The stories range from a sly dialect tale to a poet's description of a town transformed by snow. A Victorian writer breathes life into an old tragedy; a woman remembers a bleak poverty in Barrow. Here are Lakeland writers whose tales rooted in feeling for the past - Ransome remembering his boyhood, Walpole with high adventure, Graham Sutton's engaging Flemming family, Melvyn Bragg himself describing Cumbria at the turn of the century. And always here, always dominant, are the lakes and fells of which Wainwright writes with love: "Always there will be the lonely ridge, the dancing beck, the silent forest...The fleeting hour of those who love the hills is quickly spent, but the hills are eternal."