Christopher Stocks – författare

In Forgotten Fruits, Christopher Stocks tells the fascinating - often rather bizarre - stories behind Britain's rich heritage of fruit and vegetables. Take Newton Wonder apples, for instance, first discovered around 1870 allegedly growing in the thatch of a Derbyshire pub. Or the humble gooseberry which, among other things, helped Charles Darwin to arrive at his theory of evolution. Not to mention the ubiquitous tomato, introduced to Britain from South America in the sixteenth century but regarded as highly poisonous for hearly 200 years.This is a wonderful piece of social and natural history that will appeal to every gardener and food aficionado.

Why do we pick up pebbles on the beach? What is it we see in them, and why do we take them home to display on our shelves? Is it their inherent beauty, their infinite variation, or simply their associations with a happy time and place? In this book – part social history and part practical guide – writer and pebble collector Christopher Stocks unearths the sometimes surprising story of our love-affair with pebbles, and considers how the way we see them today has been influenced over the years by artists, authors and even archaeologists. Printmaker Angie Lewin is widely admired for her alluringly stylish images of the natural world. She celebrates the experience of walking and sketching along the British coastline, often incorporating pebbles in her limited edition prints and paintings. Many of these feature in the book alongside a series of new images.

'A beautiful little book in every way ... Lyrical and eye-catching on the one hand, informative on the other, their work encourages us to look more closely at the nature around us ... A treasure of a book' House & Garden The perfect countryside and armchair companion to the wild flowers of the British Isles. Illustrator Angie Lewin and author Christopher Stocks follow up the success of The Book of Pebbles with The Book of Wild Flowers, a celebration of British wild flowers and their place in the landscape. Christopher Stocks explores their beguiling and sometimes peculiar history, and reveals some of the best places to see them, as well as the conditions in which they thrive. The book focuses on around 21 of Lewin's favourite wild flowers, and include reproductions of her paintings and illustrations, many of them created specially for the book. Sustaining our long-held affection for the British countryside, The Book of Wild Flowers will appeal to anyone who loves British wild flowers, as well as fans of Angie Lewin, who is widely admired for her alluring images of the natural world.

The perfect armchair and gardening companion to the garden flowers of the British Isles. Christopher Stocks tells the fascinating tales of nineteen cultivated flowers and their journeys from distant corners of the world to British gardens, illustrated by the painter and printmaker Angie Lewin in this charming companion guide. The Book of Garden Flowers builds on the success of Angie Lewin’s and Christopher Stocks’ previous collaborations; The Book of Wild Flowers (Thames & Hudson, 2024) and The Book of Pebbles (Thames & Hudson, 2020.) While The Book of Wild Flowers explored the natural history of Britain’s favourite wild species, The Book of Garden Flowers is more a social history, bringing into focus some of the remarkable people who introduced exotic plants to our gardens from around the globe, including: • Margery Fish, secretary to six successive editors at the Daily Mail, who rescued many cottage garden flowers from obscurity• Ellen Willmot, who employed over 100 staff in her garden and burned through a huge fortune thanks to her passion for plants, dying penniless and alone• Charles Dickens, who became obsessed with a particular pelargonium• John Gerrard, the famous 17th-century herbalist, who planted the first nasturtiums in the UK at his City of London garden• Henry VIII, who ate the first British-grown artichokes on the outskirts of Chelmsford Revealing new stories behind some of our most familiar and unusual garden plants, this beautiful book explores the horticultural history and floral folklore of some of the nation’s favourite flowers.