Christopher Howse opens his inspiring new collection with a brilliant introduction in which he examines the origin of the word comfort and shows how its meaning has been devalued in common usage. Comfort is a rich concept and should not be taken as a simple thing. It is sometimes at its most stirring when the outlook is black, as this book bears testament. The book contains over eighty extracts, in prose and verse, from a wide variety of spiritual writers of a Christian background who have won a place in the English-speaking tradition, including Augustine, Christina Rossetti, John Donne, Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis, Hilaire Belloc and Emily Dickinson to name but a few.