The Lost Words
Rediscover our natural world with this spellbinding book
Published on 5. October 2017
Book
Hardback
128 pages
978-0-241-25358-8 (ISBN)
Description
A timeless, beautifully designed gift for children and adults alike, The Lost Words is a gift that will be pored over and cherished for years to come.
All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. These are the words of the natural world; Dandelion, Otter, Bramble and Acorn, all gone. A wild landscape of imagination and play is rapidly fading from our children's minds.
The Lost Words stands against the disappearance of wild childhood. It is a joyful celebration - in art and word - of nearby nature and its wonders. With acrostic spell-poems by award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane and illustrations by Jackie Morris, this enchanting book evokes the irreplaceable magic of language and nature for all ages.
*** Discover The Lost Spells, the magical companion book from the creators of a literary phenomenon. ***
Praise for The Lost Words:
'The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year' Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Observer
'Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty' Alex Preston, Observer
'My top book of the year' Susan Hill, Spectator
'Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope' Jeanette Winterson, Guardian
All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. These are the words of the natural world; Dandelion, Otter, Bramble and Acorn, all gone. A wild landscape of imagination and play is rapidly fading from our children's minds.
The Lost Words stands against the disappearance of wild childhood. It is a joyful celebration - in art and word - of nearby nature and its wonders. With acrostic spell-poems by award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane and illustrations by Jackie Morris, this enchanting book evokes the irreplaceable magic of language and nature for all ages.
*** Discover The Lost Spells, the magical companion book from the creators of a literary phenomenon. ***
Praise for The Lost Words:
'The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year' Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Observer
'Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty' Alex Preston, Observer
'My top book of the year' Susan Hill, Spectator
'Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope' Jeanette Winterson, Guardian
Reviews / Votes
Sumptuously illustrated... the poems or nature summoning spells are indebted to Gerard Manley Hopkins with rich alliteration, word-play and compound adjectives [and] the illustrations make plants and creatures luminous against backgrounds of gold leaf * The Sunday Times * One of the most striking and poignant picture books of the season...this giant tome contains not only beautiful illustrations but a haunting series of poems that read like a summoning back of the wild...a book in which every page seems like an act of love * Herald * Sumptuous...a book combining meticulous wordcraft with exquisite illustrations deftly restores language describing the natural world to the children's lexicon... The Lost Words is a beautiful book and an important one * The Observer * A breathtaking book... Jackie Morris has created something that you could spend all day looking at... This is the kind of complexity that can enthral a child as much as an adult... Refreshingly accessible, slightly magical * New Statesman * One of the publishing sensations of recent times is The Lost Words * Daily Mail * My top book of the year... It is one of those children's books for ages up to 99 years. The lost words are those my generation and earlier ones used every day and which are fast disappearing, and Macfarlane's aim is to resurrect the everyday glories of our language. May he succeed * Susan Hill * Gilded and glorious, Jackie Morris's paintings illustrate Robert Macfarlane's acrostic poems in The Lost Words, one of the years loveliest books for all ages over 10 * The Sunday Times * Rapturously received celebration of nature * The New Statesman * Deeply reflective and gorgeously illustrated...Morris's paintings of wildlife echo the complexity and vibrancy of Macfarlane's poetry * Publisher's Weekly * Publisher's description. An illustrated spell-book in watercolour and gold leaf, from the rich creative minds of award-winning author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist Jackie Morris. As nature vanishes from children's language and their imagination, The Lost Words stands against the loss of magic, celebrating the joy of wild childhood and wild places. * Penguin *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Target group
Children/juvenile
Interest Age: From 5 years
Dimensions
Height: 376 mm
Width: 276 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
1483 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-25358-8 (9780241253588)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Robert Macfarlane's Sunday Times- and New York Times-bestselling books include Is a River Alive?, Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places and Mountains of the Mind, as well as a book-length prose-poem, Ness. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, won prizes around the world, and been widely adapted for film, music, theatre, radio and dance. He has also written operas, plays, albums, choral works, and films including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe.
Macfarlane has collaborated closely with artists including Olafur Eliasson, and with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E.M. Forster Prize for Literature, and in 2023 in Toronto he was the inaugural winner of the Weston International Award for a body of work in the field of non-fiction. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and is presently working on a graphic novel re-telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Macfarlane and Morris's latest project, The Book of Birds, will be published in May 2026.
Jackie Morris has written or illustrated over seventy books, including the beloved children's classics Tell Me a Dragon and East of the Sun, West of the Moon and a volume of modern folklore for readers of all ages, Wild Folk,
co-created with Tamsin Abbott, as well as introducing and illustrating Barbara Newhall Follett's gem of wild literature, The House Without Windows. She is the internationally bestselling and award-winning co-creator of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells, two books which have captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers of all ages. In 2018 she won the Kate Greenaway Medal and the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for The Lost Words.
Her artwork is held by public art collections in the UK and USA and has been published in the New Statesman, Independent and Guardian among other venues. She tours and performs with the Spell Songs ensemble around the UK, and is a Fellow of Herefordshire Art College.
Morris and Macfarlane's latest project, The Book of Birds, will be published in May 2026.
Macfarlane has collaborated closely with artists including Olafur Eliasson, and with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the E.M. Forster Prize for Literature, and in 2023 in Toronto he was the inaugural winner of the Weston International Award for a body of work in the field of non-fiction. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and is presently working on a graphic novel re-telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Macfarlane and Morris's latest project, The Book of Birds, will be published in May 2026.
Jackie Morris has written or illustrated over seventy books, including the beloved children's classics Tell Me a Dragon and East of the Sun, West of the Moon and a volume of modern folklore for readers of all ages, Wild Folk,
co-created with Tamsin Abbott, as well as introducing and illustrating Barbara Newhall Follett's gem of wild literature, The House Without Windows. She is the internationally bestselling and award-winning co-creator of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells, two books which have captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers of all ages. In 2018 she won the Kate Greenaway Medal and the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for The Lost Words.
Her artwork is held by public art collections in the UK and USA and has been published in the New Statesman, Independent and Guardian among other venues. She tours and performs with the Spell Songs ensemble around the UK, and is a Fellow of Herefordshire Art College.
Morris and Macfarlane's latest project, The Book of Birds, will be published in May 2026.