"In a gentle mood of nostaglia, The New England Butt'ry Shelf Almanac has been written in the hope that it will furnish interesting and useful information to all those who love New England, its customs, its people, its old houses and ghosts, its hills and valleys and rivers and coves, and its ways of keeping house and garden."

Mrs. Campbell has chronicled the seasons, describing a bird for each month -- its habits, feeding, song-- and a flower -- its cultivation and literary associations -- and then chatting in a personal way about the landscape, historical events, and anecdotes of rural life, quoting bits of poetry, and giving recipes. She concludes each month with a portrait of a New England personage of note.

Mrs. Campbell writes from her own experience and observation and her seemingly endless knowledge of New England lore. She tells us about feeding chickadees in January, catching and cooking shad in April, and cultivating roses in June; about the wrens nesting in the mailbox, the independent, long-lived New England ladies and their legal battles, Emily Dickinson, and New England herb gardens. Mrs. Campbell has set all this down in a lyric prose which is perfectly complemented by Tasha Tudor's beautiful illustrations.