The Lost Spells | Jackie Morris

The Lost Spells is Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris's 2020 companion volume to The Lost Words, kindred in spirit but fresh in form. Where the first book responded to a specific loss, words removed from a dictionary, this one turns outward, celebrating the animals, birds, trees and flowers we share our everyday landscapes with: barn owl and red fox, grey seal and silver birch, jay and jackdaw.

Each spell-poem is written to be read aloud, and each is paired with new watercolour paintings from Morris, ranging from the tender to the genuinely funny, a rare quality in nature writing, but one that runs right through this book. Together, word and image bear witness to nature's ordinary, everyday power to amaze, console and bring joy, and to the creatures easily overlooked simply because they are familiar.

The book grew directly out of the response to The Lost Words, and continues its mission: teaching the names of common species, and encouraging readers, young and old, back into a habit of attention and care for the wild lives around them.

Prints in this collection are drawn directly from the book, hand-signed by both Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane, and printed on archival cotton rag paper to hold the full depth of Morris's watercolour work.