Everyone will have his or her own preferences for the best place to spend the bank holiday, but on a (mostly) fine Easter weekend like this there are few places to compare with the Lake District. This weekend, though, there is a special reason to head for the north-west. That reason is the return of Wainwright.

Alfred Wainwright's series of seven pictorial guides to the Lakeland Fells are one of the quirkiest publishing ventures ever undertaken. Since they were first published in the 1950s and 1960s, the lovingly handwritten and drawn books have guided and accompanied countless ascents, from all angles, of the 214 fells, ranging from the highest (Scafell Pike) to the lowest (Castle Crag).

At the start of this year, Michael Joseph, part of the Penguin Group, finally decided to let the guides lapse from their list. Now, just three months later, the books have been freshly minted by the publisher Frances Lincoln to appear again just in time for the bank holiday weekend. What is more, the printing has been returned to the firm of Titus Wilson and Son of Kendal, the town in which most of the books were written.

There is more than one view to be taken of Wainwright the man. He could be a misanthrope and a misogynist. He thought the head of Eskdale was a place to get away from nagging wives and that Coniston Old Man was being ruined by girls in high heels. As volume followed volume it appeared increasingly odd that someone should write guides to a part of the country from which he seemingly preferred all visitors other than himself to stay away.

About Wainwright's books, though, there can be no doubts. They have long outlived the man. They remain a unique, delightful, idiosyncratic and very northern achievement, which in their new editions will entice fresh generations of admirers and walkers. What is more, since the fells have not changed much in 50 years, they are mostly as accurate as ever.