Snowbound

A night lost on the Russian steppe, a frozen river and a mayor who remembers being poor, a snowman in love with a stove, a stepdaughter who answers Father Frost kindly, a pond sounded through the ice, and the family tree of steam. Snowbound gathers six pieces of winter reading by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Hans Christian Andersen, Verra Xenophontovna Kalamatiano de Blumenthal, Henry David Thoreau and William Elliot Griffis: stories, fairy tales, a folk tale and one chapter of Walden. Best read close to a stove. A gift edition, illustrated throughout with original paintings made for this edition and set with ornamental chapter openings.