Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, January 2022
A TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR
A BBC HISTORY MAG BOOK OF THE YEAR
A DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘Expressive, bold and quite beautiful’ The Lady
‘[a] delight of a book’ Antonia Senior, The Times
‘ravishingly lovely’ The Times Ireland
‘[a] lively retelling of British myths’ Apollo Magazine


Soaked in mist and old magic, Storyland is a new illustrated mythology of Britain, set in its wildest landscapes.

It begins between the Creation and Noah’s Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants from an age when the children of Cain and the progeny of fallen angels walked the earth, to the founding of Britain, England, Wales and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans.

These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong, inhabited with characters now half-remembered: Brutus, Albina, Scota, Arthur and Bladud among them. Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning artworks and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary. We visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge and Wayland’s Smithy, spanning the length of Britain from the archipelago of Orkney to as far south as Cornwall; mountains and lakes such as Snowdon and Loch Etive and rivers including the Ness, the Soar and the story-silted Thames in a vivid, beautiful tale of our land steeped in myth. It Illuminates a collective memory that still informs the identity and political ambition of these places.

In Storyland, Jeffs reimagines these myths of homeland, exile and migration, kinship, loyalty, betrayal, love and loss in a landscape brimming with wonder.