Gossamer Days

A lively and personal account of the strange, centuries long entanglement between humans and spiders.

What happens when one making animal meets another? Gossamer Days explores the strange web of spider-human relationships.

From gun sights to sticky tunics via acoustic lures, royal underwear and the mystery of the disappearing spider goats, Eleanor Morgan’s intriguing and original book examines the strange, centuries long entanglement between humans and spiders.

Artist and writer Eleanor Morgan has spent a decade working with spiders and their silk. Her explorations have led her in search of one of the world’s largest web weaving spiders, to the rooftops of Oxford University and to a garage in Sussex.

Her weaving and drawing with spider silk drew her to research the lost history of Europe’s attempt to create a spider silk weaving industry and to the ancient and ongoing sacred use of spider webs in the South Pacific. Legends of schoolgirls tempting spiders with their singing inspired her own attempt to serenade a spider.

In this personal, lively and far ranging book, Eleanor Morgan transforms the way we think about spiders and the wonders of their webs.