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 When I heard that Penguin were to cease their publication of AW's Pictorial Guides I was very upset and wrote to the Managing Director at the time to assert this disproval. However, an obviously far sighted Frances Lincoln came to the aide of all us Wainwright afficiendos.
For many of us, this rescue was just what was needed to save the fabulous books of AW for future generations. Like the works of Wordsworth or even, dare I say it, Shakespeare, I believe AW's work are a national treasure. However, I now fear that Frances Lincoln may have gone a bit too far with one of their recent publications.
The book named above is nothing more than a collection of eighteen walks from Aw's eight pictorial guides to the Lake District. At £12.99 I think this is an appalling waste of money for many of us who would probably already own the guides. In fact this price works out at about 24 pence for each page of Eric Robson's introductions to each fell. Not wanting to be too disparaging, I don't think this book is published in the true spirit of AW. I really think he would be turning in his grave (if he had one) and in the words of a friend, this book is 'tosh'.
Of course, for anyone without any AW guides, it does encompass eighteen of his fells with all the relevant pages from the guides and in this way could be useful. However, Frances Lincoln have already published a similar guide by Hunter Davies outlining 'The Best of A Wainwright'. I really have to say, who would buy this book? Oh, well I did, but then again I'm a utilitarian and thought I'd do the job of saving the rest of you from this piece of fellwalking travesty! Sorry Frances Lincoln, but keep to more appropriate projects like the attempts to update the guides by Chris Jesty.
Wainwright's TV Walks is published by Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978 0 7112 2806 1 "BAA" rating:  [1 / 5] Sympathy rating! In defence Frances Lincoln Publishers stated, " I completely understand your comments on Eric's book, but we simply felt that we didn't want BBC books to be the only people to capitalise on the TV programmes, and it seemed a worthwhile, and slightly unusual, selection of peaks. But of course if you already know anything about AW, or have the books, it's a waste of time" |
