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Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris to collaborate on major new project: ‘The Book of Birds’

An enchanting, beautiful book for lovers of the natural world

The Lost Spells

Beautiful books make unforgettable gifts. This pocket-sized treasure is the perfect present for fans of nature, language and rich artwork, adult and child alike! 
 
Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. 
 
Each "spell" conjures an animal, bird, tree or flower -- from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw -- with which we share our lives and landscapes. Moving, joyful and funny, The Lost Spells above all celebrates a sense of wonder, bearing witness to nature's power to amaze, console and bring joy. 
 
Written to be read aloud, painted in brushstrokes that call to the forest, field, riverbank and also to the heart, The Lost Spells summons back what is often lost from sight and care, teaching the names of everyday species, and inspiring its readers to attention, love and care. 
 
'Luminously beautiful. An amulet in dark times, to be carried like a talisman out into the world, where it is very much needed' Dara McAnulty 
 
'A book about spells that succeeds in being spell-binding in its own right . . . It already feels like a true classic. Buy one copy for yourself and any others for as many children as you can afford' Books for Keeps

The poems are beautiful, insightful and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny; and together with the vivid artwork, wild creatures are brought to life. A beautiful volume sure to be treasured by nature lovers of all ages.

The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year

Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic and scope of language

A breathtaking book. Jackie Morris has created something that you could spend all day looking at... Accessible and magical

Gilded and glorious, one of the year's loveliest books for all ages over 10

Robert Macfarlane (Author) 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 (Author) 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.

Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but new in form, The Lost Spells is a pocket-sized treasure, a new collection of 'spells' - acrostic poetry and artwork - by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. 
 
Written to be read aloud, calling to forest, field, riverbank, ocean, and also to the heart, these 'spells' summon back what is often lost from sight and care, and inspire protection and action on behalf of the natural world. From Jay to Jackdaw, Oak to Barn Owl, Silver Birch to Grey Seal, they capture the special, individual spirit of each plant and creature. Above all, they celebrate a sense of wonder, bearing witness to nature's power to amaze, console and bring joy.

Rediscover our natural world with this spellbinding book

The Lost Words

A timeless, beautifully designed gift for children and adults alike, The Lost Words is a gift that will be poured 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

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

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

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

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

One of the publishing sensations of recent times is The Lost Words

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

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

Rapturously received celebration of nature

Deeply reflective and gorgeously illustrated...Morris's paintings of wildlife echo the complexity and vibrancy of Macfarlane's poetry

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.

All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. Words like Dandelion, Otter, Bramble, Acorn and Lark represent the natural world of childhood, a rich landscape of discovery and imagination that is fading from children's minds. 
 
The Lost Words stands against the disappearance of wild childhood. It is a joyful celebration of the poetry of nature words and the living glory of our distinctive, British countryside. With acrostic spell-poems by peerless wordsmith Robert Macfarlane and hand-painted illustrations by Jackie Morris, this enchanting book captures the irreplaceable magic of language and nature for all ages.

The House Without Windows

For the adventurer in your life - young or old - discover a dazzling lost classic and escape to distant shores... 
 
Eepersip is a girl with the wild in her heart. She does not want to live locked up behind the walls of a house. So she runs away - first to the Meadow, then to the Sea, and finally to the Mountain. Her heartbroken parents follow their daughter, trying to bring her home safe, but Eepersip has other ideas... 
 
Republished by Penguin with a new introduction and hand-inked illustrations by beloved artist Jackie Morris, The House Without Windows is a timeless fable about wildness, freedom and the redemptive power of the natural world. 
 
'I can safely promise joy to any reader of The House Without Windows. Perfection' Eleanor Farjeon, winner of the Carnegie Medal and The Hans Christ­ian Andersen Award 
 
'Gloriously illuminated by Jackie Morris's moving art, this is a work of strange power for our own bewildered times' Nick Drake 
 
'A classic, as miraculous and awe-inspiring as the author' Xinran, author of The Good Women of China

One of the strangest, most enchanting and mystifying stories I've read in recent years . . . It's beautiful, bonkers and brimming with the abundance and richness of nature and a life lived with no boundaries. Also Jackie's intro and illustrations provide a depth and context that only lifts the book and its story higher.

. . . Extraordinary. Deeply weird, beautiful &amp; unsettling.

The House without Windows is miraculous - a fearless odyssey into a dreamtime of wildness and enchantment. Gloriously illuminated by Jackie Morris's moving art, this is a work of strange power for our own bewildered times.

Barbara Newhall Follett (Author) Barbara Newhall Follett was an American child prodigy novelist. Born in 1914, she published her first novel, The House Without Windows, aged twelve. One year later she published another, The Voyage of the Norman D., based on her own experiences sailing round Nova Scotia without her parents at thirteen years old. Barbara Newhall Follett disappeared shortly before Christmas 1939, leaving her home with $30 in her pocket, and was never seen again. The mystery of her disappearance has never been solved. Jackie Morris (Illustrator, Introducer) 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.

This is the irresistible and entirely unique story of one little girl's desire to escape into the wilderness. 
 
Little Eepersip doesn't want to live in a house with doors and windows and a roof, so she runs away to live in the wild - first in the Meadow, then by the Sea, and finally in the Mountain. Her heartbroken parents follow her, bringing her back home to 'safety' and locking her up in the stifling square of the house. But she slips away once more, following her heart into the richness of untrammelled nature and disappearing forever. 
 
First published in 1927 and written by a child of just twelve years old, The House Without Windows is an extraordinary paean to the transcendent beauty of the natural world, and the human capacity to connect with it.

Robert Macfarlane

Jackie Morris

True to Robert Macfarlane’s epiphanies about nature in last year’s wonderful Is A River Alive? this compendium of birds tries to answer the question not "what" but more, “who is that bird?”. The 49 species here are all illustrated by the beautiful watercolours of Jackie Morris, Macfarlane’s collaborator on The Lost Words, and are all currently endangered or in decline. A field guide of songs and spirits as much as nests and habits

Shortlist, 'Our 25 most anticipated non-fiction books for 2026'

Praise for The Lost Words: The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year

Praise for The Lost Words: Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope

Praise for The Lost Words: Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris have made a thing of astonishing beauty

Praise for The Lost Spells: Luminously beautiful. An amulet in dark times, to be carried like a talisman out into the world, where it is very much needed

Praise for The Lost Spells: A book about spells that succeeds in being spell-binding in its own right . . . It already feels like a true classic. Buy one copy for yourself and any others for as many children as you can afford

A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss

A great thinning of the skies is underway. Around 50% of bird species are in decline worldwide. Our dawns and springs are quieter each year than the last. An almost unimaginable abundance has been lost. It does not have to be this way –– but we will not save what we do not love. 
 
The Book of Birds is a compendium of forty-nine bird species, from Avocet to Yellowhammer, all of which are presently declining or endangered in Britain. Inspired by the classic bird-books with which the authors grew up, this is a field guide with a difference. It asks not ‘What is that bird?’, but ‘Who is that bird?’ It shows its readers how to identify birds, but also how to identify with them. 
 
With lyrical precision and playfulness, Robert Macfarlane evokes each bird’s habits and habitats –– their patterns of flight and of song, how they hunt and gather, how they nest and raise their young, the stories and myths which attend them, the threats which shadow them, and how their wild lives intersect with our own. And on every page we encounter Jackie Morris’s exhilarating artwork, painted in watercolour and gold and animated by an extraordinary attention to detail and sense of life. Set among this dazzling flock of species are seven sections celebrating the 'Seven Wonders' that together make up the everyday miracle of 'Bird': Nest, Egg, Beak, Song, Feather, Flight and Migration. 
 
Seven years in the making, The Book of Birds is a love letter to the splendours and mysteries of birdlife, and a clarion call to halt the loss of birds from land, sea and sky. From Dipper to Dunnock and Kestrel to Kingfisher, from mountain to ocean and city to river, Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane conjure the unique spirit and lifeway of each species. This is a book to be treasured by bird-lovers of all ages, and a future classic work of reference.

Jackie Morris

Praise for The Book of Birds

True to Robert Macfarlane’s epiphanies about nature in last year’s wonderful Is A River Alive? this compendium of birds tries to answer the question not "what" but more, “who is that bird?”. The 49 species he ...

**Praise for The Lost Words:** The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year

**Praise for The Lost Words:** Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope

True to Robert Macfarlane’s epiphanies about nature in last year’s wonderful Is A River Alive? this compendium of birds tries to answer the question not "what" but more, “who is that bird?”. The 49 species he ...

**Praise for The Lost Words:** The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year

**Praise for The Lost Words:** Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope

True to Robert Macfarlane’s epiphanies about nature in last year’s wonderful Is A River Alive? this compendium of birds tries to answer the question not "what" but more, “who is that bird?”. The 49 species he ...

**Praise for The Lost Words:** The most beautiful and thought-provoking book I've read this year

**Praise for The Lost Words:** Gorgeous to look at and to read. Give it to a child to bring back the magic of language - and its scope

Books by Jackie Morris

Articles featuring Jackie Morris

Short audiobooks you can enjoy in one sitting

The Penguin books that challenged our view of the environment

Uplifting climate books to inspire hope about the planet’s future

Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris to collaborate on major new project: ‘The Book of Birds’

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