'Elegant and deeply sensory' Katherine May, author of Wintering

An exhilarating leap into darkness in all its forms, enchantments and history: the new work of non-fiction from award-winning poet and writer Jean Sprackland

Darkness can make the most ordinary activity feel adventurous. Open a door and step through it. You can’t see a thing: you could be anywhere. Step over the threshold, into the dark, and feel your way.

We humans have a complicated relationship with the dark. We fear it, and make great efforts to blot it out. But we also long for it, especially if we live in cities, or remember the starry skies of our childhoods. Darkness opens us up to risk, delight and transformation. Is it possible to prise it free of its negative associations, which are as old as human thought itself?

In her quest for a new, more intimate relationship with darkness, acclaimed poet and writer Jean Sprackland finds herself confronting some of the deepest – and darkest – questions about who we are and our place in the world. Drawing on memory and imagination, history and ecology, literature and myth, Night Vision is an expansive, thrilling journey into the true dark.

An elegant and deeply sensory exploration of darkness in all its forms -- Katherine May, author of WINTERING
Stylish and crammed with memorable details, Night Vision is the most lucid book about darkness you will ever read. -- Robert Crawford, author of OLD WORLD
An intimate, questing, and deeply moving collection of nocturnal encounters, Jean Sprackland’s Night Vision is a stellar polyphony of vespertine voice and story. Illuminating and lyrical, equal parts uncanny and comforting, but always curious and humane, this book is essential reading for anybody wishing to become better acquainted with the night. -- Dan Richards, author of OVERNIGHT
In this lyrical series of essays, Jean Sprackland falls in love with the dark... An evocative and ambitious study of a state that makes up half of human experience. * Irish Times *

Jean Sprackland is the author of five poetry collections, including Tilt, which won the 2007 Costa Poetry Award. She has also published two works of non-fiction, Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach, which won the 2012 Portico Prize, and These Silent Mansions: A Life in Graveyards in 2020. Her forthcoming titles are Night Vision, a non-fiction exploration of darkness, in November 2025, and Goyle, Chert, Mire, her latest poetry collection, in April 2026.