Description
William Winstanley (1628 – 1698), poet, journalist and historian, friend of King Charles II and Daniel Defoe and uncle to Henry Winstanley, builder of the first Eddystone lighthouse, was one of the most popular writers in England in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
Nowadays, however, William is chiefly noted for his heart-warming writings on Christmas and its customs, which did more than anything else to revive interest in these customs post-Restoration, after they had been banned by the Puritans for thirteen years and almost forgotten.
This book describes all the wonderful Yuletide merrymaking that took place every year in Winstanley’s Essex farmhouse and provides one of the fullest accounts of seventeenth-century rural life ever written.