The living mountain / Nan Shepherd ; introduced by Robert Macfarlane ; afterword by Jeanette Winterson.

Map of Cairngorm Plateau -- Introduction by Robert Macfarlane -- [Notes] -- Foreword by the author -- One: The plateau -- Two: The recesses -- Three: The group -- Four: Water -- Five: Frost and snow -- Six: Air and light -- Seven: Life: the plants -- Eight: Life: birds, animals, insects -- Nine: Life: Man -- Ten: Sleep -- Eleven: The senses -- Twelve: Being -- Afterword [A bed. A book. A mountain.] by Jeanette Winterson -- Glossary.

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose expores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of "The Living Mountain" lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published. -- inside front cover