And who couldn’t do with a bit of this from time to time? ‘Mr Wilderness’s porridge was very different from that served in Mrs Brisket’s school. Later in the novel when the girls escape a human terror, the evil Mrs Brisket, food restores them, its properties almost magical.

Joan Aiken writes some of the best food in the business.’

Writers who write good food are people who understand the twin joys of comfort and adventure, of rooting your world via the senses and galvanising the imagination by evoking real-life hunger. ‘It is easier to trust a writer who writes great food.They are a person who has paid attention to the world. Katherine Rundell, the author of the Aiken infused novel, The Wolf Wilder, writes in her introduction to the new Folio edition about the importance of another sensation, food. ‘The dark, snow-scented air blowing constantly past them, the boundless wold and forest stretching away in all directions before and behind, the tramp and jingle of the horses, the snugness and security of the carriage, and above all Bonnie’s happy welcoming presence beside her.’ Detail from Edward Gorey’s cover The feelings that are stirred are every bit as rich as the terror she has escaped. Saved from the wolves, Sylvia’s fear is replaced by another emotion, a deep love for her cousin Bonnie. The sensory nature of the book is further heightened by an extra layer of strangeness: we are in 1832, but an alternate version where James III sits on the throne and where wolves have returned to our shores through the recently opened channel tunnel. We see all this through the wide eyes of orphaned Sylvia, making her way to Willoughby Chase for the first time in a train carriage which comes under attack by a slathering pack of starving wolves. ‘Snow lay thick, too, upon the roof of Willoughby Chase… The house was all alight within, and the joyous hubbub of its activity contrasted with the sombre sighing of the wind and the hideous howling of the wolves without.’ From the very first page you really feel as if you’re in this world. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a book all about sensations of cold and fear warmth and happiness food and starvation. I never read the Wolves of Willoughby Chase myself, but it was read to me by a primary school teacher of impeccable taste.Īs I sit here thirty years on, the book finally in my hands, I’ve discovered something new and rather special about it – added to Joan Aiken’s story is a tactile sensation that could only come from holding the soft, tanned pages in my hands. December is the month when I excuse myself from my intimidating pile of unread books and turn back to some favourites from Christmases past.

The wolves of willoughby