James Reeves – författare

‘Impossibly wonderful’ Daily TelegraphRevised and updated with a brand new chapter. Find peace in a restless world. ‘James’s heartfelt gentleness and masterful wisdom shine through in his teachings. His expertise lies in his ability to light the path for others to find their own way.’ Richard Miller, clinical psychologist, researcher and yogic scholar. In today’s fast-paced world, we’ve never been busier. We’re surrounded by pressures from work, family, study and social media. It can feel like there’s never time to truly switch off and relax.But the answer is simpler than you think – and it’s within you.Through simple, easily learned techniques The Book of Rest reveals how to find a moment of peace even in the busiest of days, and a path to a calmer, happier and more relaxed you.

Where shall I meet you my pretty little dearWith your red rosy cheeks and your coal black hairI'm going a milking kind sir she answered meBut it's dabbling in the dew where you might find meThe cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a revived fascination with the native song of England, perhaps best known through the work of that crusading folklorist Cecil Sharp. But while the music was inoffensive enough to genteel ears, the violent, ribald and frequently erotic lyrical content was definitely not the respectable Victorian or Edwardian's cup of tea. Accordingly, the folk verse that did find its way into print was invariably neutered by what Alan Lomax describes as 'the dictates of the puritanical and namby-pamby editors of the Mauve Decade'. In The Idiom of the People (1958), James Reeves has revisited Cecil Sharp's manuscripts, restoring a selection of 115 folk lyrics to their authentic, unexpurgated form. The result is a fascinating record of England's traditional verse, in all its robust, vigorous and beguiling glory.

My one man, my two men shall mow me down my meadows, My three men, my four men shall carry my grass away,My four, my three, my two, my one, nay not mo,For to mow my hay and carry it awayOn a beautiful midsummer's day.In The Idiom of the People (1958), James Reeves revisited the manuscripts of the folklorist Cecil Sharp to produce a selection of traditional English verse undiluted by early twentieth-century propriety. The Everlasting Circle (1960), his successor volume, takes a similarly faithful approach to the folk-verse collections of Sabine Baring-Gould, H. E. D. Hammond and George B. Gardiner.Restored to their original vitality, the lyrics assembled here sing out joyfully and strong. Songs familiar to us still - 'The Cuckoo', 'The Carpenter's Wife - sit alongside lesser-known verse in a vibrant collection of England's folk heritage.

In the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature it says of James Reeves, 'His real achievement, however, lies in his poetry, which is generally regarded as the best British ''serious'' children's verse since Walter de la Mare - though the poems are usually far from serious in subject-matter.'In this complete edition, first published in 1973, the delight is two-fold as the poems are complemented by Edward Ardizzone's beautiful and witty illustrations.