Stephen Lewis browses through a clutch of new books from and about the delights and oddities of the White Rose county.

While it's not exactly unknown for an author to see a book published after he has reached the ripe old age of 90, it's not all that common, either. So hats off to Arnold Walker, one-time natural history curator at the Whitby Museum, for doing just that.

Despite his self-imposed exile in Canada - the Yorkshire historian and folklorist moved there with part of his family 30 years ago - he has dipped into a wealth of Yorkshire folklore, myth and legend to winnow out the best, strangest and most chilling tales for his new book Arnold Walker's Yorkshire Miscellany (The King's England Press, £5.99).

As befits a former contributor to The Dalesman, Mr Walker has a way with words. From forgotten nineteenth century squires and their feuds, through drunken monks, gibbets and severed hands, to early balloonists and flying machines, he draws the reader deftly into a peculiarly Yorkshire world of boggarts and weather-saws, eccentric parsons and mountebanks. If you've ever felt 'as grue as thunder' or even 'as thrang as three in a bed', this could be just the book for you.

From an author with Whitby connections to a Whitby hero. Lifeboatman Henry Freeman is probably best known now for the stunning portrait photos of him by Victorian photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe. Clad in sou'wester and thigh boots, his rugged, bearded features are every inch the Victorian lifeboatman. But as former Yorkshire Evening Post editor Malcolm Barker's new book Portrait Of A Lifeboat Hero (Smith Settle, £4.95) reveals, Freeman more than earned his reputation.

A newcomer to the close-knit Whitby fishing community, Freeman's courage and good fortune were soon apparent when he was the sole survivor of the 1861 lifeboat disaster. As storms lashed the East Coast on February 6 1861, the crew of the Whitby lifeboat carried out no fewer than four daring rescues within a space of less than 24 hours. Then, while struggling out to rescue a fifth ship, disaster struck. The boat overturned - killing all on board except the novice Henry Freeman. Later in his career Freeman hit the national headlines by helping to drag the Whitby lifeboat six miles overland through deep snowdrifts in answer to a plea for help from the Robin Hoods Bay station. Yet despite his heroism, Freeman also stirred up storms of controversy. This is a warts-and-all biography that brings the great lifeboatman vividly to life.

"I don't much care for four wheel drives, though what I can't abide... Is not so much the thing itself, but those who sit inside."

So begins Yorkshireman John Nursey's poem Four Wheel Drives - a poem filled with the disdain of the true countryman for the sharp-suited, mobile-phone wielding, Barbour-jacketed city type whose rugged, all-weather vehicle has never got further than the nearest Marks and Spencer foodhall.

It's one of countless little gems in John's second volume of verse, Right To Roam, published by John himself at £3.95, with proceeds going to St Catherine's and St Leonard's hospices. John's previous volume, Week-end In The Village, sold more than 1500 copies, with proceeds going to Lidgett Grove School.

FOR those who like a little fresh air with their ale, Len Markham's Pub Strolls In The Yorkshire Dales (Countryside Books, £6.95) may be just the ticket. It features 30 short walks in what even by Yorkshire standards is exceptionally beautiful countryside - and best of all, each is based around a cracking local pub. Those featured include the Craven Arms at Appletreewick, The Buck Inn at Malham and The Bolton Arms at Redmire. Most of the pubs are so good this little book should really come with a warning attached, though: don't forget, this is a book of pub strolls.

Far weightier and more compendious is York University history department's definitive The Lord Lieutenants And High Sheriffs of Yorkshire, 1066 - 2000 (Wharncliffe Books, £30.) This will be a real boon to the serious local historian, but is not to be picked up lightly by those of a more frivolous disposition. You would not, for example, want to carry it around on any of the above-named pub strolls.

GOOD news for devotees of the York-based crime novels of John Baker. His complete set of so-far-published Sam Turner books, including Poet In The Gutter, King Of The Streets and Walking With Ghosts, have been brought out in a smart new paperback edition by Indigo, £5.99 each.

PICTURE: Malham Cove, the Buck Inn, below, and pub-guide-stroller Len Markham