Table of Contents

Foreword by Robert Macfarlane Prologue The Green Evenings Secret Hills SPRING Orkney Northern Waters Spar Boxes, Northern England SUMMER Summer in the North The Rich Boys of Bygdoy and other fragments of a summer A Northward Journey and a Summer Storm HARVEST Bringing Home a Portrait by Cosmo Alexander Painting Northern Scotland The Food of the North (with Jane Stevenson) THE BACK END OF THE YEAR Visits in Autumn A Letter from Copenhagen The Grim Consolations of the North The Aesthetics of Remoteness and the North WINTER Winter in the North Epilogue: The Snow over Madrid Acknowledgements

About the Author

PETER DAVIDSON was born in Scotland in 1957 and is Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Aberdeen. He is the author of the topographical book The Idea of North (Reaktion, 2005); a monograph on the internationalism of the seventeenth century, The Universal Baroque (MUP, 2007); and a collection of poems, The Palace of Oblivion (Carcanet, 2008).

Reviews

'This is a poet's book, his mind wide open to the cultures of the world, especially of the north, specifically Aberdeenshire. The language is luscious, musical and precise, rich with quotation and the cultures of, especially, northern Europe, from minerology and industry to poetry, painting, music.' --Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales Praise for THE IDEA OF THE NORTH by Peter Davidson: 'A masterpiece... beyond being merely clever or wise: a beautiful book.' --Scottish Review of Books