A E Housman – A Shropshire Lad
A collectible new Penguin Classics series: stunning, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets, which present each poet's most famous book of verse as it was originally published. Designed by the acclaimed Coralie Bickford-Smith and beautifully set, these slim, A format volumes are the ultimate gift editions for poetry lovers.
A Shropshire Lad was first published in 1896 at A. E. Housman's own expense. The collection of lyrical poems became hugely successful following the Second Boer War and World War I, with themes such as nostalgia for one's home and the patriotic celebration of the life of the solider striking a chord with English readers. This collection contains Housman's greatest works, demonstrating the lyrical precision and emotional depth of his writing. It includes 'To an Athlete Dying Young', a lyrical elegy to a life lost at its prime and 'When I was One-and-Twenty', a love poem on the ignorance of youth.
A. A. Milne – When We Were Very Young
Curl up with A. A. Milne’s classic book of poetry for children, When We Were Very Young. This is the first volume of rhymes written especially for children by Milne – as popular now as when they were first written. Featuring E. H. Shepard’s original illustrations, this collection is a heart-warming and funny introduction to children’s poetry, offering the same sense of humour, imagination and whimsy that we’ve come to expect from Milne's favourite books about Winnie-the-Pooh, that Bear of Very Little Brain.
Alfred Lord Tennyson – Selected Poems
As Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign, Alfred Lord Tennyson's spellbinding poetry epitomized the Victorian age, and Selected Poems is edited with an introduction and notes by Christopher Ricks.
'Into the jaw of Death
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred'
The works in this volume trace nearly sixty years in the literary career of one of the nineteenth century's greatest poets, and show the wide variety of poetic forms he mastered. This selection gives some of Tennyson's most famous works in full, including Maud, depicting a tragic love affair, and In Memoriam, a profound tribute to his dearest friend. Excerpts from Idylls of the King show a lifelong passion for Arthurian legend, also seen in the dream-like The Lady of Shalot and in Morte d'Arthur. Other works respond to contemporary events, such as Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, written in Tennyson's official role as Poet Laureate, or the patriotic Charge of the Light Brigade, while Locksley Hall provides a Utopian vision of the future, and the late poem Crossing the Bar is a haunting meditation on his own mortality.
In his introduction, Christopher Ricks discusses aspects of Tennyson's life and works, his revisions of his poems, and his friendship with Arthur Hallam. This edition also includes a chronology, further reading and notes.
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, the sixth of eleven children. His first important book, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, was published in 1830, and was not a critical success, but his two volumes of Poems, 1842, which contain some of his finest work, established him as the leading poet of his generation.
If you enjoyed Selected Poems, you might like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge'sLyrical Ballads, also available in Penguin Classics.
'He had the finest ear of any English poet since Milton'
T.S. Eliot
Anne Brontë – The Complete Poems of Anne Brontë
The youngest of the well-known Brontë siblings, Anne Brontë (1820-1849) grew up drawing and writing poetry in secret. As a child, Anne spent countless hours on the Yorkshire moors with her sister, Emily, creating an imaginary world called Gondal. Anne attended school at age fifteen, and there she experienced an episode of spiritual crisis, which is evidenced in many of her poems. She later worked as a governess before collaborating with her sisters, Emily and Charlotte, on a collection of poetry in 1846. The sisters used pen names to publish their work - Anne wrote as Acton Bell - to avoid unfair judgment as women writers. Although the collection sold poorly, Anne found a market for her own poetry, and was published in Fraser's Magazine. Unfortunately, her deeply insightful collection of work was cut short by an early death, and is therefore often overshadowed by that of her sisters.
Carl Jung – The Undiscovered Self
Written three years before his death, The Undiscovered Self combines acuity with concision in masterly fashion and is Jung at his very best. Offering clear and crisp insights into some of his major theories, such as the duality of human nature, the unconscious, human instinct and spirituality, Jung warns against the threats of totalitarianism and political and social propaganda to the free-thinking individual. As timely now as when it was first written, Jung's vision is a salutary reminder of why we should not become passive members of the herd.
With a new foreword by Sonu Shamdasani.
Charles Bukowski – The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993
The Pleasures of the Damned is a selection of the best poetry from America's most iconic and imitated poet, Charles Bukowski. Celebrating the full range of the poet's extraordinary sensibility and his uncompromising linguistic brilliance, these poems cover a lifetime of experience, from his renegade early work to never-before-collected poems penned during the final days before his death.
The Pleasures of the Damned is an astonishing poetic treasure trove, essential reading for both long-time fans and those just discovering this unique and important American voice.
Christina Rossetti – Goblin Market and Other Poems
A collectible new Penguin Classics series: stunning, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets, which present each poet's most famous book of verse as it was originally published. Designed by the acclaimed Coralie Bickford-Smith and beautifully set, these slim, A format volumes are the ultimate gift editions for poetry lovers.
Goblin Market and Other Poems was Christina Rossetti's first full volume of poetry, published in 1862. The collection received widespread critical praise and established Rossetti as the foremost female poet of her time. Tennyson, Hopkins and Swinburne all admired her work. The title poem 'Goblin Market' is arguably her most famous, a fairy tale entwining themes of sisterhood, temptation and sexuality. This collection also includes 'Up-hill', an allegorical dialogue on life and death and 'Maude Clare', a ballad of a woman scorned.
E. E. Cummings – Selected Poems
"No one else has ever made avant-garde, experimental poems so attractive to both the general and the special reader." Randall Jarrell
The one hundred and fifty-six poems here, arranged in twelve sections and introduced by E. E. Cummings's biographer, Richard S. Kennedy, include his most popular poems, spanning his earliest creations, his vivacious linguistic acrobatics, up to his last valedictory sonnets. Also featured are thirteen drawings, oils, and watercolors by Cummings, most of them never before published.
Edith Sitwell – Edith Sitwell: Avant garde poet, English genius
For the better part of forty years, Edith Sitwell's poetry has been neglected by critics. But born into a family of privileged eccentrics, Edith Sitwell was highly regarded by her contemporaries: the great writers and artists of the day who attended her unlikely London literary salon. Her quips and anecdotes were legendary and her works like English Eccentrics confirmed her comic genius, while later she established herself as the quintessential poet of the Blitz.
This masterly biography, meticulously researched and drawing on many previously unseen letters, firmly places Edith Sitwell in the literary tradition to which she belongs.
Gaston Bachelard – The Poetics of Space
Beloved and contemplated by philosophers, architects, writers, and literary theorists alike, Bachelard's lyrical, landmark work examines the places in which we place our conscious and unconscious thoughts and guides us through a stream of cerebral meditations on poetry, art, and the blooming of consciousness itself.
Houses and rooms; cellars and attics; drawers, chests and wardrobes; nests and shells; nooks and corners: no space is too vast or too small to be filled by our thoughts and our reveries.
With an introduction by acclaimed philosopher Richard Kearney and a foreword by author Mark Z. Danielewski.
George Herbert – The Temple
A collectible new Penguin Classics series: stunning, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets, which present each poet's most famous book of verse as it was originally published. Designed by the acclaimed Coralie Bickford-Smith and beautifully set, these slim, A format volumes are the ultimate gift editions for poetry lovers.
On his deathbed George Herbert entrusted the manuscript of The Temple to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, asking him to publish it if he thought it was worthy. Herbert died in 1633 and the collection was published the same year to great acclaim, subsequently becoming one of the best-loved collections in the English language. The Temple is an astounding collection of verse poems: an extended meditation on man's relationship to God that is characterised by Herbert's clarity and directness of style. It includes such favourites as 'The Collar', 'The Pearl' and 'Love', with its beautiful opening lines: 'Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, / Guilty of dust and sin'.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Best Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is one of America's most famous poets of all time. Born in Maine in 1807, Longfellow would go on to write timeless classics that remain beloved to this day.
Now you can enjoy the best Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poems in The Best Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features his works such as A Psalm of Life, The Courtship of Miles Standish, Paul Revere's Ride, The Song of Hiawatha and many, many more.