The Heart of the Forest Why Woods Matter

Looking at threats to forest life across the globe, John Miller draws on literature, film and art to explore why woods matter to us, building on the ecological case for saving trees to raise the compelling question of their cultural value.

The Heart of the Forest explores four enduring ways in which we connect to the woods – through Refuge, Sacredness, Horror and Hope – making fascinating links between emotion and genre. For Henry David Thoreau, the woods are places beyond civilization; for Ursula LeGuin and C S Lewis, they are loaded with otherworldly potential; and for those fleeing captivity, they can provide a welcome sanctuary. Woods can strike fear, they can inspire wonder, they can be lovely, dark and deep.

With full-color illustration throughout, this book branches out into the British Library to find both the haunting and the hopeful in an unparalleled collection of books, manuscripts and photography. It tells a global story of how we understand trees, and its beautifully illustrated pages present a moving argument for conservation and renewal.

John Miller is Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Sheffield and editor of the classic fiction collection Weird Woods: Tales from the Haunted Forests of Britain, published by the British Library in 2020.

Kathleen Jamie FRSL FRSE (born 13 May 1962) is a Scottish poet and essayist. In 2021 she became Scotland's fourth Makar. She is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including The Bonniest Company (Picador, 2015), Waterlight: Selected Poems (2007), and The Tree House (2004), which won the Forward Prize for best poetry collection of the year, and a Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award.
 

CONTENTS
Foreword 6
Introduction 9
 
1 REFUGE 35
2 HORROR 99
3 SACREDNESS 151
4 HOPE 207
 
Notes 266
Index 282
Acknowledgements 288
Illustration credits 288