Wessex Poems was Hardy's first collection of poetry, published after he had turned away from novel-writing, disillusioned by the savage reception Jude the Obscure had received.
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.
How the idea of the author was born in the battleground of genderWhen Sappho sang her songs, the only word that existed to describe a poet was a male oneaoidos, or ';singer-man.
The Roman poet and satirist Persius (34-62 CE) was unique among his peers for lampooning literary and social conventions from a distinctly Stoic point of view.
This great Central Asian epic, passed down through generations and now brought to life in a new translation, carries the reader into a world of nomads, warriors and horselords'I am a steel-fanged lion, a dragon ready to pounce, a mighty poplar with golden branches rising up to the sky'The bard Sagh mbay Orozbaq uulu composed his oral telling of the great Central Asian Manas epic in the early twentieth century, although it draws on far older sources.
'So my mind sinks in this immensity:and foundering is sweet in such a sea'Revisited and reorganized over his lifetime, this extraordinary work was described by Leopardi as a 'reliquary' for his ideas, feelings and deepest preoccupations.
George Herbert combined the intellectual and the spiritual, the humble and the divine, to create some of the most moving devotional poetry in the English language.
Written by a fourteenth-century cleric, this spiritual allegory explores man in relation to his ultimate destiny against the background of teeming, colorful medieval life.
A dazzling kaleidoscope of adventures, ogres, monsters, barbaric splendor, and romance, this epic poem stands as one of the greatest works of the Italian Renaissance.
Haunting and enigmatic, Virgil's Eclogues combined a Greek literary form with scenes from contemporary Roman life to create a work that inspired a whole European tradition of pastoral poetry.
Roger McGough is one of Britain's best loved poets and this collection 'charts [his] passage from youthful exuberance to the wry reflection of his later years.
Although he is most famous for The Faerie Queene, this volume demonstrates that for these poems alone Spenser should still be ranked as one of England's foremost poets.
At the Tabard Inn in Southwark, a jovial group of pilgrims assembles, including an unscrupulous Pardoner, a noble-minded Knight, a ribald Miller, the lusty Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself.
One of the most versatile of Roman poets, Catullus wrote verse of an almost unparalleled diversity and stylistic agility, from the brevity of the epigram to the sustained elegance of the elegy.
Written by an unknown author in the twelfth century, this powerful tale of murder and revenge reaches back to the earliest epochs of German antiquity, transforming centuries-old legend into a masterpiece of chivalric drama.
'An endless moral maze, introducing literature's first Romantic, Satan' John CareyIn his epic poem Paradise Lost Milton conjured up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos ranging across huge tracts of space and time.
In 1855 Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, the work which defined him as one of America's most influential voices, and which he added to throughout his life.
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings is a collection that displays the full force of Edgar Allen Poe's mastery of both Gothic horror and the short story form.
Composed in the early thirteenth century, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival is the re-creation and completion of the story left unfinished by its initiator Chr tien de Troyes.
Taking its inspiration from Shakespeare's idea of the "e;seven ages"e; of a human life, this new anthology brings together the best-loved poems in English to inspire, comfort and delight readers for a lifetime.
Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Elder Edda is one of the classic books that influenced JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings'So the company of men led a careless life,All was well with them: until One beganTo encompass evil, an enemy from hell.
The great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in over 100 years by two of its country's foremost poetsTennyson portrayed him, and wrote at least one poem under his name.
Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthur's Camelot in deep mid-winter.
One of the greatest poems of the classical world, Virgil's Georgics is a glorious celebration of the eternal beauty of the natural world, now brought vividly to life in a powerful new translation.
Contemporary translations and adaptations of ancient Greek poet Callimachus by noted writer and critic Stephanie BurtCallimachus may be the best-kept secret in all of ancient poetry.
This carefully crafted ebook: "e;The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Complete Edition)"e; is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
