Classic Poetry

Composed towards the end of the first millennium, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is one of the great Northern epics and a classic of European literature. In his new translation, Seamus Heaney has produced a work which is both true, …

With an Introduction, Notes and Bibliography by Anne Varty, Royal Holloway, University of London. WILDE, GLAMOROUS AND NOTORIUS, more famous as a playwright or prisoner than as a poet, invites readers of his verse to meet an unkno…

With an Introduction by Donald McFarlan. Robert Burns, the most celebrated of all Scottish poets, is remembered with great devotion - his birthday on 25th January provokes fervour and festivity among Scots and many others the wor…

This enchanting collection of more than 80 poems captures the essence of the natural world, as seen through the eyes of Scotland's beloved bard. Each chapter explores a different aspect of nature - from wild, mossy mountains and g…

This selection provides an excellent introduction to Ezra Pound's poetry for the general reader, and for the student of contemporary literature. It takes the place of the pioneer edition edited by T. S. Eliot which was published i…

With an Introduction and Notes by Katherine McGowran. Christina Rossetti is widely regarded as the most considerable woman poet in England before the twentieth century. No reading of nineteenth century poetry can be complete witho…

With an Introduction, Bibliography and Glossary by Dr Paul Wright, Trinity College, Carmarthen. 'I mean to show things really as they are, not as they ought to be'. wrote Byron (1788-1824) in his comic masterpiece Don Juan, which …

Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was rediscovered only 200 years ago, and published for the first time in 1839. One of the earlies…

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was such an acclaimed poet in her own life that she was suggested as a candidate for the Poet Laureateship when Wordsworth died in 1850. Yet today we h…

With an Introduction, Bibliography and Glossary by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature University of Kent at Canterbury. Thomas Hardy started composing poetry in the heyday of Tennyson and Browning. He was still writing…

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. W. B. Yeats was a Romantic and Modernist, mystical dreamer and leader of the Irish Literary Revival, Nobel prizewinner, dramatist and, a…

With an Introduction by Antonia Till. William Wordsworth (1771-1850) is the foremost of the English Romantic poets. He was much influenced by the events of the French Revolution in his youth, and he deliberately broke away from th…

With an Introduction by Paul Wright. 'What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth' So wrote the Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) in 1817. This collection contains all of his poetry: the early work, which is often under…

With an Introduction and Bibliography by Stephen Matterson, Trinity College, Dublin. Walt Whitman's verse gave the poetry of America a distinctive national voice. It reflects the unique vitality of the new nation, the vastness of …

When Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017—revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was “fresh, unpretentious and lean” (Madeline Miller, The Washington Post)—critics lauded it as “a revelation”…

Translated by H.F. Cary With an Introduction by Claire Honess. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the most important and innovative figures of the European Middle Ages.Writing his Comedy (the epithet 'Divine' was added by later…

With an Introduction by Tim Cook. Shakespeare's sonnets have an intensity of both feeling and meaning unmatched in English sonnet form. They divide into two parts; the first 126 sonnets are addressed to a fair youth for whom the p…

This collection of masterful poetry demonstrates the extraordinary range and beautiful lyricism of Ireland's most accomplished poet, William Butler Yeats.From the beautiful musicality of 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' to the politic…

Introduction, Notes and Bibliography by Dr Bruce Woodcock, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Hull. William Blake was an engraver, painter and visionary mystic as well as one of the most revolutionary of the Romantic poets.…

With an Introduction, Notes and Bibliography by Dr Bruce Woodcock, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Hull. Shelley's short, prolific life produced some of the most memorable and well-known lyrics of the Romantic period. Bu…

Selected by Rosemary Gray. Poignant, wry, chilling, challenging, amusing, thought-provoking and always intriguing, these accomplished tales from the pens of great writers are object-lessons in the art of creating a literary master…