The artwork is gorgeous! The story is not as good as I remember from childhood, I couldn’t help just feeling bad for Jackson. ( )

I wish I'd read this book when I was a child, as I think I would have been as entranced by it then as I was by The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia. Not that it's like them in terms of the story, plot or characters, but in its magical evocation of a new, strange world of possibilities it certainly stands with those books in my mind.

I did have the fortune of coming to it in time to read to my children when they were little. It's entirely possible that I enjoyed it more than they did - time will tell.

Each page is presented as a facsimile of the eponymous Uncle's letters to his nephew, complete with "genuine" typographical errors, crossings-out, drops of blood and spilled gravy (that clumsy Jackson!), and every page illuminated with Peake's fabulous, fantastical, phantasmagorical illustrations.

The story is funny, thrilling, absurd, mysterious and poignant. It's a great book for parents to read along with children from 6 upwards, and is easily enjoyable by anybody of any age who is prepared to give free-reign to a childlike love of adventure and nonsense. ( )

Strange and rather wonderful.

Oh blubber! The Picador edition from the 70s doesn't reproduce the illustrations with as high a quality as I would like, but despite this the wit and charm of this book are maintained. Anyone with a slightly askew sense of humor should appreciate this book, an illustrated series of letters from an Arctic explorer wandering in a vast, beautiful wasteland populated with bizarre and mythical creatures. ( )

lovely edition, good story ( )