A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Penguin Books Ltd Peer Gynt and Brand Henrik Ibsen Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisMasterful versions of Ibsen’s two great verse plays by one of our greatest living poets, Geoffrey Hill These two masterly and contrasting verse dramas by Ibsen made his reputation as a playwright. The fantastical adventures of the irrepressible Peer Gynt—poet, idler, procrastinator, seducer—draw on Norwegian folklore to conjure up mountains, kidnappings, shipwrecks, and trolls in an exuberant celebration of life; while Brand, an unsparing vision of an idealistic priest who lives by his steely faith, explores free will, sacrifice, and the self. This volume brings together the poet Geoffrey Hill’s acclaimed stage version of Brand with a new poetic rendering of Peer Gynt, published for the first time. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best w
£11.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Effect
Book SynopsisI can tell the difference between who I am and a side effect.The Effect is a clinical romance. Two young volunteers, Tristan and Connie, agree to take part in a clinical drug trial. Succumbing to the gravitational pull of attraction and love, however, Tristan and Connie manage to throw the trial off-course, much to the frustration of the clinicians involved. This funny, moving and perhaps surprisingly human play explores questions of sanity, neurology and the limits of medicine, alongside ideas of fate, loyalty and the inevitability of physical attraction.Following on from the critical and commercial success of Enron, The Effect offers a vibrant theatrical exploration into the human brain via the heart. It received its world premiere at the National Theatre''s Cottesloe Theatre in November 2012, starring Billie Piper and Jonjo O''Neill. It is published here in the Modern Classics series alongside an introduction by Miriam Gillinson.Trade ReviewLucy Prebble is a playwright blessed with an exceptionally fine mind . . . the play struck me as being both wise and sane, raising more questions than it answers, to be sure, but that seems a sign of integrity in a work dealing with such a complex subject. But what makes The Effect so special, is that as well as being a play of ideas, it is also deeply moving, both in its depiction of the giddy wonder of love, and also in its account of the terrifying wasteland of depression itself . . . The Effect is an astonishingly rich and rewarding play, as intelligent as it is deeply felt. * Daily Telegraph *Lucy Prebble’s follow-up to Enron is a scintillating exploration of the clash between scientific advance and human impulse … it demonstrates the same vivid, provocative intelligence * Financial Times *This four-hander brings the author's agile wit, intellectual penetration and a fresh, deeply affecting empathy to bear on a fundamentally much more complex topic than finance: brain chemistry and what it can – and cannot – tell us about the causes of severe depression and the experience of being in love … This is a provocative and challenging play … it ends in edgy gesture of good sense that made me feel like cheering. * Independent *After her hit with Enron, Lucy Prebble turns to medicine and the mind - to great effect ... The Effect is a four-hander that hopscotches confidently across themes of neurology, psychopharmacology, depression, love and guilt . . . The Effect moves you to thought, sometimes to strong feeling. * Sunday Times *Prebble has written a profound and stirring play. The material is complex but always accessible, the drama serious and informative yet deeply human, with the odd jolt of piercing humour. The Effect confirms her as one of the most intelligent voices in British theatre. * Evening Standard *Incisive dialogue . . . Prebble really researches and the range of her subjects suggests she will have a long theatrical life * Observer *The Effect is a headlong delve into the mysteries of the human brain. And Prebble pulls it off with assurance, tickling our cerebellums in the first half, before tugging on our heartstrings in the second . . . heartbreaking . . . [it has] a heart as well as a brain. * Time Out *Lucy Prebble's absorbing drama, a hit . . . Taut, intelligent * The Times *This is a knotty drama, dealing with scientific objectivity, guilt, the mysteries of the human heart and brain and what makes us who we are, wrapped up in a deceptively simple and constantly entertaining package. * Guardian *
£10.44
Faber & Faber David Hare Plays 1
Book SynopsisThis first volume of David Hare''s plays contains his work from the 1970s, including his landmark play of that decade, Plenty, charting the development of ''one of the great post-war British playwrights'' (Independent on Sunday).The volume also includes the plays Slag, Teeth ''n'' Smiles, Knuckle and Licking Hitler, and is introduced by the author.
£17.09
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Tragedy of Mariam
Book SynopsisKaren Britland is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
£11.67
Oxford University Press Erotic Poems
Book SynopsisTrade Reviewwelcome the new additions to the finest and widest-ranging library of great writing (at accessible prices too), OUP's World's Classics series ... Goethe's Erotic Poems ... this is the first readily available version of the uncensored Elegies * Oxford Times *
£10.44
Faber & Faber Couplets
Book Synopsis''An astounding debut . . . a book that seduces the brain . . . Millner's couplets enact high-wire acts of wit and poignancy.'' New York Times''I've never read a better encapsulation of what it means to question a previously fixed idea of identity and selfhood.' Vogue''Millner's ultimate achievement is to draw open the distance . . .between the self that one takes as given and the self, no less true, that one cannot help but make.'' New YorkerMillner is brilliant at showing how early moments of lust can be existentially unmooring. . . Couplets is deft, delicate and unexpectedly fun.' GuardianMaggie Millner's Couplets absolutely blew me away. Breathing new life into that most familiar of poetic forms, she recounts the difficulties inherent in making ourselves vulnerable to another person with precision and guile.' James Conor Patterson, Poetry Society, Books of the YearMaggie Millne
£11.69
Faber & Faber Kim Kardashians Marriage Faber Poetry
Book SynopsisSam Riviere''s debut, 81 Austerities, began as a blog responding to the spending cuts, and went on in publication to win the 2012 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A sequel of sorts, the 72 poems in Kim Kardashian''s Marriage mark out equally sharpened lines of public and private engagement. Kim Kardashian''s 2011 marriage lasted for 72 days, and was seen by some as illustrative of the performative spectacle of celebrity life. Whatever the truth of this (and Kardashian''s own statements refute it), Riviere has used the furore as a point of ignition, deploying terms from Kardashian''s make-up regimen to explore surfaces and self-consciousness, presentation and obfuscation. His approach eschews a dependence upon confessional modes of writing to explore what kind of meaning lies in impersonal methods of creation. For, as with 81 Austerities, the process of enquiry involves the composition method itself, this time in poems that have been produced by harvesting
£11.69
Faber & Faber Emily Dickinson Poet to Poet
Book SynopsisIn this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets in our literature.Emily Dickinson (1830-86) was born in Amherst, Massachussetts, where she lived most of her life as a recluse, seldom leaving the house or receiving visitors. She published just a handful of poems in her lifetime, her first collection appearing posthumously in 1890.
£8.54
W. W. Norton & Company What the Living Do Poems
Book Synopsis"A deeply beautiful book, with the fierce galloping pace of a great novel."—Liz Rosenberg Boston GlobeTrade Review"The love in this book is tangible and redemptive." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune"Her verse is almost unornamented though she manages some great gift of will and expression to convey the sharpest feeling in long, graceful lines that seem to breathe on the page.... Despite the fathomless pain inherent in these poems, Howe never succumbs to sentimentality or self-pity; her tone is passionate yet detached, her vocabulary and imagery evocative, appropriate, and devastating." -- Memphis Commercial Appeal"Howe is a truth-teller of the first order. Fearless in presenting unfiltered experiences, she interweaves her simple, economical language into long, subordinated sentences, loose, enjambed couplets that spill compellingly down the page with near-invisible artistry." -- Providence Sunday Journal"Marie Howe's poetry is luminous, intense, eloquent, rooted in abundant inner life." -- Stanley Kunitz"Marie Howe has reinvented the elegy as a poem for the living, a poem of instruction, how we're educated by grief. Scrupulously attentive, rigorously self-questioning, What the Living Do is an achievement of remarkable power." -- Mark Doty"The tentative transformation of agonizing, slow-motion loss into redemption is Howe's signal achievement in this wrenching second collection, which uncovers new potential for the personal poem." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
£12.34
Nick Hern Books The Estate
Book Synopsis
£10.44
Nick Hern Books Here We Are
Book SynopsisStephen Sondheim's 'cool, and impossibly chic' (New York Times Critic's Pick) final work, written with Tony Award-nominee David Ives. UK premiere at the National Theatre, London, in 2025.
£11.69
Oxford University Press Pericles
Book SynopsisThe Oxford ShakespeareGeneral Editor: Stanley WellsThe Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers- The only single-volume, modern-spelling edition both to offer a reconstruction of the original play and to reproduce the corrupt Quarto text of 1609 exactly as first printed- On-page commentary and notes explains meaning, staging, language, and allusions- Detailed introduction explains the complex textual situation and Shakespeare''s probable collaboration with George Wilkins- Illustrated with production photographs and related art- Full index to introduction and commentary- Durable sewn binding for lasting use''not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship'' ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volu
£7.59
Oxford University Press The Poems of Catullus
Book SynopsisTrade Review`The best current translator of Latin poetry, Guy Lee, has now turned his attention to "The Poems of Catullus" ... this is yet another distinguished version from Lee's pen which deserves to become the standard version both for those with Latin and those studying Catullus in translation, and its author deserves hearty congratulations.' Greece and Rome'the work of a consummate Latinist ... with a desire to communicate something of the elegance and verbal flair of his original, a matter close to L.'s heart as the crisp introduction makes plain ... a very persuasive book' Roland Mayer, King's College, London, The Classical Review, Vol. XLIII, No. 2, 1993Table of ContentsIntroduction: The text; The collection: Catullus the Epigrammist; Catullus' life and poetry; the translation; A chronology; Latin text and English verse translation; Explanatory notes; Appendices: A. Difference from Mynors' Oxford text; B. The metres of Catullus; Select bibliography
£10.44
Oxford University Press Greek Lyric Poetry
Book SynopsisThe Greek lyric, elegiac, and iambic poets of the two centuries from 650 to 450 BC - Archilochus and Alcman, Sappho and Mimnermus, Anacreon, Simonides, and the rest - produced some of the finest poetry of antiquity, perfect in form, spontaneous in expression, reflecting all the joys and anxieties of their personal lives and of the societies in which they lived. This new poetic translation by a leading expert captures the nuances of meaning and the whole spirit of this poetry as never before. It is not merely a selection but covers all the surviving poems and intelligible fragments, apart from the works of Pindar and Bacchylides, and includes a number of pieces not previously translated. The Introduction gives a brief account of the poets, and explanatory Notes on the texts will be found at the end. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Faust The Second Part of the Tragedy
Book SynopsisIn this sequel to Faust, Mephistopheles takes Faust on a journey through ancient Greek mythology, conjuring for him the insurpassably beautiful Helen of Troy, as well as the classical gods. Faust falls in love with and marries Helen, embodying for Goethe his ''imaginative longing to join poetically the Romantic Medievalism of the germanic West to the classical genius of the Greeks''. Further to the themes of redemption and salvation in this great drama, are Goethe''s eerie premonitions of modern phenomena such as inflation and the creation of life by scientific synthesis.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary autTrade Review" One of those great works of literature into which a writer has been able to combine his ranging preoccupations and understanding as he worked." -A. S. Byatt, from the Preface
£11.69
W. W. Norton & Company Love is a Dangerous Word the Selected Poems of
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£14.24
Andrews McMeel Publishing Hello Lovely
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£14.39
Penguin Books Ltd Purgatorio
Book SynopsisIn Purgatorio Dante, having described his journey into Hell, narrates his ascent of Mount Purgatory with Virgil, as he encounters penitents who toil through physical agonies, starvation and flames to assuage their earthly vices. Only by learning from them can he achieve his final enlightened transition to the lost Earthly Paradise at the mountain's summit, where he meets his dead love, Beatrice, and prepares to ascend to Heaven. Depicting a realm of intense sensation and physical experience, Dante's poem transformed the traditional Christian idea of Purgatory by showing how the free will of the aspiring soul could change wordly perversions into perfection. It is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human possibility, hope and redemption.Trade Review“A masterly translation.” ―Judith Thurman, The New Yorker“Kirkpatrick brings a more nuanced sense of the Italian and a more mediated appreciation of the poem's construction than nearly all of his competitors.” —The Times (London)“We gain much from Kirkpatrick’s fidelity to syntax and nuance. . . . His introduction . . . tells you, very readable indeed, pretty much all you need for a heightened appreciation of the work.”—The Guardian“Likely to be the best modern version of Dante . . . The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism.” —Bernard O’Donoghue“This version is the first to bring together poetry and scholarship in the very body of the translation—a deeply informed version of Dante that is also a pleasure to read.” —David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania
£12.34
Nick Hern Books Blue Stockings
Book Synopsis'Love or knowledge: which would you choose?' A moving, comical and eye-opening story of four young women fighting for education and self-determination against the larger backdrop of women’s suffrage. 1896. Girton College, Cambridge, the first college in Britain to admit women. The Girton girls study ferociously and match their male peers grade for grade. Yet, when the men graduate, the women leave with nothing but the stigma of being a 'blue stocking' - an unnatural, educated woman. They are denied degrees and go home unqualified and unmarriageable. In Jessica Swale's debut play, Blue Stockings, Tess Moffat and her fellow first years are determined to win the right to graduate. But little do they anticipate the hurdles in their way: the distractions of love, the cruelty of the class divide or the strength of the opposition, who will do anything to stop them. The play follows them over one tumultuous academic year, in their fight to change the future of education. Blue Stockings received its professional premiere at Shakespeare's Globe, London, in August 2013, directed by John Dove.Trade Review'Cracking... leaves you astonished at the prejudices these educational pioneers had to overcome' * Guardian *'Brings wit and intelligence to a meaty subject' * Evening Standard *'Lively and eye-opening' * Independent *'Thoughtful and provocative... thoroughly researched and grippingly dramatised' * The Stage *'Touching and entertaining... Swale tells the story with both wit and a hint of righteous indignation' * Telegraph *
£10.44
Samuel French Ltd Look Back in Anger
Book SynopsisJimmy Porter, frustrated and bitter in his drab flat, lives with middle-class wife Alison. Also sharing the flat is Cliff who keeps things tenuously together. Alison''s friend Helen arrives and persuades her to leave Jimmy only to fall for him herself. When Alison becomes pregnant Helen leaves them together. This play originally opened at the Royal Court Theatre in 1956 and has since proved to be a milestone in the history of theatre.
£14.42
Faber & Faber The War Poems
Book SynopsisSiegfried Sassoon is one of the First World War poets whose poetry has defined a generation. He published most of his war poetry in The Old Huntsman (1917) and Counter-Attack (1918). Chronologically ordered, the poems in this collection act as a timeline for the war, bringing to life the extraordinary experiences of soldiers in that conflict.
£11.69
Faber & Faber Harold Pinter Plays 3 The Homecoming Old Times No
Book SynopsisThis revised third volume of Harold Pinter''s work includes The Homecoming, Old Times, No Man''s Land, four shorter plays, six revue sketches and a short story. It also contains the speech given by Pinter in 1970 on being awarded the German Shakespeare Prize.The Homecoming''Of all Harold Pinter''s major plays, The Homecoming has the most powerful narrative line... You are fascinated, lured on, sucked into the vortex.'' Sunday Telegraph''The most intense expression of compressed violence to be found anywhere in Pinter''s plays.'' The TimesOld Times''A rare quality of high tension is evident, revealing in Old Times a beautifully controlled and expressive formality that has seldom been achieved since the plays of Racine.'' Financial Times''Harold Pinter''s poetic, Proustian Old Times has the inscrutability of a mysterious picture, and the tension of a good thriller.''
£17.09
Faber & Faber Collected Poems
Book SynopsisSince the publication of Walter de la Mare''s first edition of his poems in 1920, Edward Thomas has gradually come to be recognised as one of the great English poets of the 20th century.Though sometimes classified with Owen, Rosenberg and Sassoon as a ''war poet'', he was rather a poet who died tragically in the war, and whose main subjects were the English countryside and its people, and the solitude of the observing self. The present edition offers the complete poems together with detailed editorial apparatus in what has become acknowledged as the standard edition by R. George Thomas. It also includes Thomas''s remarkable prose War Diary of 1917.Trade Review'One of the most distinctive voices of the twentieth century.' P.J. Kavanagh
£17.09
Faber & Faber Beat the Devil A Covid Monologue
Book SynopsisCovid-19 seems to be a sort of dirty bomb, thrown into the body to cause havoc.On the same day that the UK government finally made the first of two decisive interventions that led to a conspicuously late lockdown, David Hare contracted Covid-19. Nobody seemed to know much about it then, and many doctors are not altogether sure they know much more today. Suffering a pageant of apparently random symptoms, Hare recalls the delirium of his illness, which mixed with fear, dream, honest medicine and dishonest politics to create a monologue of furious urgency and power.
£6.99
Pan Macmillan Julius Caesar
Book SynopsisIn Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare uses the most notorious murder in classical history to tell a tragic tale of friendship, ambition and betrayal. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Ned Halley.As the greatest figures of the Roman Republic are swept along on the tide of a terrifying conspiracy, a touchingly human story is revealed in some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.Trade ReviewEvery generation continues to be in his debt. Shakespeare’s plots, which are brilliantly polyvalent, continue to inspire ceaseless adaptations and spin-offs. His unforgettable phrase-making recurs on the lips of millions who do not realise they are quoting Shakespeare * Guardian *
£999.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Cymbeline: Third Series
Book SynopsisIn Cymbeline, Ancient Britain’s female heir to the throne is slandered by a decadent Italian while the Romans invade Britain to retain it as part of their empire. Shakespeare’s late romance is full of unpredictable conjunctions that are explored in the comprehensive introduction to this new, fully-illustrated Arden edition. Valerie Wayne takes a transformative look at the play’s critical and performance history by examining its attention to gender, calumny and sexuality together with nationhood, colonialism and British identities. The authoritative play text is amply annotated to clarify its language and allusions, and three appendices delineate the play’s textual history, its rich use of music and its casting. Offering students and scholars alike a wealth of insight and new research, this edition maintains the rigorous standards of the Arden Shakespeare.Trade ReviewRichly detailed … a pleasure to read and [lives] up to the best Arden Shakespeare tradition. * Sederi Yearbook *Valerie Wayne’s edition of Cymbeline maintains the series’ commitment to top-notch editorial apparatus, commentary, and glosses … Scholars, graduate students, and anyone wanting more advanced context for the play will welcome the magisterial work that has gone into this Arden revamp … This update to Cymbeline represents a major and long-needed step forward for one of Shakespeare’s most complicated, intriguing, and often-difficult plays. Wayne had produced a massively useful edition and another essential entry into a series that serves in many ways as the golden standard for modern editorial scholarship. Thorough editions such as this remind us all how essential scholarly editorial work is. * Sixteenth Century Journal *Wayne’s sensitive introduction to the new Arden Cymbeline offers a complex interweaving of the mythical, historical, and national associations ... The text is well presented and justified. * Shakespeare Survey *The new addition to Arden's third series is an engaging and accessible Cymbeline that feels both fresh and grounded, notable for its sincere appreciation of, and elaboration on, an often maligned and very confusing play. * Archiv für das Studium der neuren Sprachen und Literaturen *A reliable, scholarly text with accessible and erudite apparatus and paratextual material. * Dr Mary Newbould, University of Cambridge, UK *Table of ContentsIntroduction Cymbeline Appendices Bibliography Index
£11.67
Carcanet Press Ltd A Woman without a Country
Book SynopsisThe poems in Eavan Boland's new collection seek out the delicate intersections between generation, identity, and the deep losses inflicted by history on those who can bear them least. Exploring questions of inheritance (from mother to daughter, from generation to generation), the poems look closely at the ways in which we construct one another, and the ways in which - even without country, or settled identity - a legacy of connection and consolation can endure.
£9.45
Canongate Books Eunoia
Book Synopsis'Eunoia', which means 'beautiful thinking', is the shortest English word to contain all five vowels. This book also contains them all, except that each one appears by itself in its own chapter. A unique personality for each vowel soon emerges: A is courtly, E is elegiac, I is lyrical, O is jocular, U is obscene. A triumphant feat, seven years in the making, Eunoia is as playful as it is awe-inspiring.Trade ReviewChristian Bok's dazzling word games are the literary sensation of the year. * * The Times * *Extraordinary, outrageous, irresistible - a must for verbivores. -- Gyles BrandrethA book that is easy, and pleasurable, to read. Eunoia is characterized not by obvious sweat and strain, but by playfulness, fluidity and self-conscious wit . . . At other times, the rhythms bounce and tumble, creating an impression of haste despite the meticulousness and graft of the book's composition . . .The book's freshest insights pertain to the resilience and manipulability of language. * * Irish Times * *No mere Christmas stocking filler for Countdown fans. Rather, it's an ingenious little novel . . . playful and irreverent . . . charming. * * Metro * *Amazing . . . impressive . . . It's beautiful, it's funny and it's moving. * * Globe and Mail * *Brilliant . . . beautiful and strange. * * Today Programme, BBC Radio 4 Interview * *This writing is brill nihilism.. this little book is an extraordinary exercise in crooked spelling. -- Philip Howard * * Guardian * *Rhyme and repetition create an intoxicating array of images and allusion . . . The close attention to sentence construction creates a refreshing poetry, where the manipulation of single letters is used to elicit startling beauty. Bok has produced an ode to the alphabet, where the power of vowels, verbs and alliteration is inspiring. -- Nathan Dunne * * Daily Telegraph * *
£9.49
Bloodaxe Books Ltd The Asking
Book SynopsisJane Hirshfield is a visionary American writer whose poems ask nothing less than what it is to be human. Both sensual meditations and passionate investigations of our shared and borrowed lives, they reveal complex truths in language luminous and precise. The Asking supersedes her earlier retrospective Each Happiness Ringed by Lions (2005).
£13.49
Scholastic Romeo Juliet Annotation Edition
Book SynopsisThis annotation edition of Shakespeare's well-known tragi-comedyis perfect for students and Shakespeare enthusiasts alike. Extrawide margins and double spacing leaves lots of room for notes. Containstop tips on effectively annotation and different techniques.
£8.21
Carcanet Press Ltd Still City
Book SynopsisThe debut English-language collection from a Ukrainian poet reflecting on her experiences of the invasion of her homeland.
£11.69
Bloodaxe Books Ltd The Jaguar
Book SynopsisWith its rich selection from each of Sarah Holland-Batt's books of poetry up to her Stella prize-winning collection The Jaguar (2022), this volume will introduce one of Australia's best-known and widely read poets to many readers for the first time.
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers A Shropshire Lad
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.What are those blue remembered hills,What spires, what farms are those??First published in 1896, A.E. Housman?s best-loved collection of poetry is a poignant exploration of love, loss, the inevitable passage of time and the fragility of life. Using elegant melodic simplicity, Housman?s poems arouse profound emotional resonance through their portrayal of an idyllic rural England, evoking a sense of nostalgia and longing for times gone by.A Shropshire Lad became popular with young British soldiers during the First World War and is now widely considered a classic work of English poetry. With lyrical beauty and universal themes, these 63 poems have inspired generations of readers across the world.
£5.62
Red Hen Press Sonnets for a Missing Key
Book SynopsisAUTHOR OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER, JAMES AUTHOR OF ERASURE, now adapted for the screen as the OSCAR-WINNING FILM, AMERICAN FICTION Percival Everett is diving back into poetry with his spellbinding new collection, SONNETS FOR A MISSING KEY “Few writers pay more rapt attention to the fact that history is, fundamentally, storytelling. … A pebble in every shoe. It’s the Everett way.”—New York Times Inspired by the Preludes of Chopin and the piano solos of Art Tatum, these sonnets leap and turn through philosophical musings accrued across a life well lived, with inventive language, crystalline imagery, and turns of phrase that lift off the page and glimmer. Everett’s sonnets soar through the musical scale, from A Minor to A Major, exploring relationships, spirituality, compassion, despair, and how the stories we tell ourselves shape our realities. Everett continuously defies convention with every creative expression and brings his literary audacity back to his poetic roots with this, his sixth collection with Red Hen Press. Sonnets for a Missing Key is a mesmerizing feat of language that reinforces Percival Everett as one of the great wordsmiths of the century.
£12.34
Oxford University Press Leaves of Grass
Book Synopsis''I spring from the pages into your arms''Walt Whitman''s Leaves of Grass stands as one of the most influential and innovative literary works of the last two hundred years. Widely credited as the originator of free verse in English, Whitman put forward a radical new language of the body, the nation, and same-sex love. After the book''s initial publication in June 1855, Whitman revised and expanded the project a further seven times, with subsequent editions appearing at regular intervals until his death in 1892. His revisions to particular poems were often substantial, and the addition of new poems to each edition so extensive, that the books dimensions altered dramatically.This edition introduces Whitmans ongoing labour of revision and renewal his successive responses to the shattering years that encompassed the American Civil War and its aftermath. Beginning with the first edition of 1855, it moves chronologically, selecting and including the most substantial poems and clusters as Whitman first included them. In most cases, this means reprinting the often more politically and sexually daring beginning, rather than the revised end, of a particular poem''s journey. The present edition thereby provides a portrait of a poet who attempted to reshape his project in tandem with some of the most tumultuous decades in American history, and who in the process altered forever the parameters and possibilities of poetry itself.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd The Prophet Kahlil Gibran Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisMy all-time favorite collection of poems . . . [Gibran's] poetry always roots me in my humanity. --Rupi Kaur, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Milk and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers, and Home BodyA stunning new hardcover edition--with a full linen case, copper stamping, turquoise gilded edges, and colored endpapers--of one of the world's most beloved and popular spiritual classics, featuring a new foreword by Rupi KaurA Penguin Classics HardcoverThe most famous work of spiritual fiction of the twentieth century, The Prophet is rooted in Kahlil Gibran's own experience as an immigrant and provides inspiration to anyone feeling adrift in a world in flux. As a prophet named Almustafa is about to board a ship to travel back to his homeland after twelve years in exile, he is stopped by a group of people who ask him to share his wisdom before he leaves. In twenty-eight poetic essays, he does so, offering profound and timeless Trade Review“This book cracked my heart wide open. And I think it’s going to do the same to yours. . . . I’ve read The Prophet more times than I can count. I’ve owned and given away dozens of copies. I have one packed permanently in my travel bag. . . . The Prophet, and the man behind it, freed the poet in me. . . . Almost a hundred years later, it still feels as fresh and as relevant as ever. Why have I read it dozens of times? Because it doesn’t feel like reading. It feels like listening to my favorite song. . . . [Kahlil Gibran] is the conductor, the words are his orchestra, and he makes them dance off the page and land softly in your belly. . . . This book is not just for poetry lovers. It is for anyone wondering what this thing we call life is about. [It is] an anchor, a lifeline, and a friend.” —Rupi Kaur, from the Foreword “Cadenced and vibrant with feeling, the words of Kahlil Gibran bring to one’s ears the majestic rhythm of Ecclesiastes. . . . If there is a man or woman who can read this book without a quiet acceptance of a great man’s philosophy and a singing in the heart as of music born within, that man or woman is indeed dead to life and truth.” —Chicago Post “Exquisite . . . simply a masterpiece.” —The Independent (London) “Like most wisdom, most of what [Kahlil Gibran] has to tell is ancient, the possession of all men who have thought much and hard about fundamental things. . . . But on it all there is also the imprint of a rich and unusual personality. . . . Gibran offers no short-cuts to happiness, no easily mastered formulae for successful living. Essentially, he bids you look closely into your own heart and mind.” —The New York Times
£13.49
Shambhala Publications Inc Gazing at the Moon: Buddhist Poems of Solitude
Book SynopsisA fresh translation of the classical Buddhist poetry of Saigyō, whose aesthetics of nature, love, and sorrow came to epitomize the Japanese poetic tradition.Saigyō, the Buddhist name of Fujiwara no Norikiyo (1118–1190), is one of Japan’s most famous and beloved poets. He was a recluse monk who spent much of his life wandering and seeking after the Buddhist way. Combining his love of poetry with his spiritual evolution, he produced beautiful, lyrical lines infused with a Buddhist perception of the world.Gazing at the Moon presents over one hundred of Saigyō’s tanka—traditional 31-syllable poems—newly rendered into English by renowned translator Meredith McKinney. This selection of poems conveys Saigyō’s story of Buddhist awakening, reclusion, seeking, enlightenment, and death, embodying the Japanese aesthetic ideal of mono no aware—to be moved by sorrow in witnessing the ephemeral world.
£14.39
Nine Arches Press In the Hollow of the Wave
Book SynopsisIn the Hollow of the Wave, the second collection by Nina Mingya Powles examines orientalism, art and artmaking in a time of ecological crisis. Engaging with the work of artists such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Yayoi Kusama, Etel Adnan and the fashion designer Guo Pei, these poems rework the notion of ekphrasis into something elemental and tactile, shaped by memory and landscapes of the body.
£10.79
Liverpool University Press How To Wash A Heart
Book SynopsisWinner of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2020.Poetry Book Society Choice, Summer 2020.Bhanu Kapil’s extraordinary and original work has been published in the US over the last two decades. During that time Kapil has established herself as one of our most important and ethical writers. Her books often defy categorisation as she fearlessly engages with colonialism and its ongoing and devastating aftermath, creating what she calls in Ban en Banlieue (2015) a ‘Literature that is not made from literature’. Always at the centre of her books and performances are the experiences of the body, and, whether she is exploring racism, violence, the experiences of diaspora communities in India, England or America, what emerges is a heart-stopping, life-affirming way of telling the near impossible-to-be-told. How To Wash A Heart, Kapil's first full-length collection published in the UK, depicts the complex relations that emerge between an immigrant guest and a citizen host. Drawn from a first performance at the ICA in London in 2019, and using poetry as a mode of interrogation that is both rigorous, compassionate, surreal, comic, painful and tender, by turn, Kapil begins to ask difficult and urgent questions about the limits of inclusion, hospitality and care.Trade ReviewReviews'Bhanu Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart catches the thinning smile of that ancient human ritual: hospitality. In a time of increasing hostility against migrants, Kapil demonstrates how survival tunes the guest to its host with devastating intimacy: ‘It’s exhausting to be a guest / In somebody else’s house / Forever.’ In these lines an ancestral trauma pours from the heart of the unwelcome across a warzone, a threshold, into a spare bedroom edging its occupant out. Ultimately what Kapil teaches us is that although the heart might be where desire, gratitude, even love exist, it is an organ to which, like a country, we may never fully belong.'Sandeep Parmar'This joyous, occasionally furious, collection explores the limits of hospitality… Kapil establishes an astonishing presence, emphasising process over product, welcoming the reader to participate in the ritual of her poems’ making.' Sammi Gale, i'Brilliantly relentless… Kapil’s words sit brilliantly between the intellectual and the bodily. The eponymous phrase of this book returns again and again, to be held up to the light in different ways. Violence, exile, love and the world of literature drip out in the answers to the opening question.' Andrew McMillan, Poetry Book Society'Responds with brilliant acuity to the prolonged stress of the immigrant experience... In this series of precise, destabilising poems, Kapil skilfully amplifies the pressured immigrant heart, showing how precarious it is to exist in colour in a white space.' Joanna Lee, The Guardian'How to Wash a Heart addresses the world of lockdown with uncanny prescience, capturing its fragmented texture and vectors of distraction, and the constant intersection it reveals between personal and political precarity.' Dai George, Wales Arts Review'Lots of the books are forgettable. This one isn’t. It sounds like nothing else I’ve read. Initially disorientating, it soon clarifies into a novelistic tale about charity and hypocrisy, the story of an immigrant welcomed as a “guest” into the home of a woman who grows resentful of this new arrival’s friendship with her adopted daughter.' Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph'Bhanu Kapil’s work exceeds beyond the page; it is felt somatically, it moves and it pulses and tremors and it tears... the collection’s raw, understated tone draws attention to the harmful systematic and clinical processes of immigration.' Alycia Pirmohamed, The Scores'Bhanu Kapil’s brilliant and formally innovative How To Wash A Heart is a bold singular work… that lays bare the struggle of the immigrant… Kapil does this with a quiet brutality and stylistic flair.' Juliano Zaffino'In this emotionally-complex, lyrically-innovative, and thematically-rich collection, hospitality becomes a way of exploring the classical literary themes of arrival and departure, forcing them into a space where the question of belonging is perennially unanswered.'Devina Shah, The Poetry School'A brilliant and complex book, urgent in its message, How To Wash A Heart deserves (and requires) a wide and attentive readership.'Seán Hewitt, Irish Times'These books [How To Wash A Heart and The Olive Trees’ Jazz and Other Poems by Samira Negrouche] are gems. Both authoritative in the best sense of the word; stridently reflecting worlds of their own – that we know, and yet have never read described in this particular way, according to the contours along which our hearts move.'Khairani Barokka, The Poetry Review'How To Wash a Heart brilliantly dissects power, both ethnic and economic... It is a wise, thought-provoking collection which burrows under the skin.'Katrina Naomi'How to Wash a Heart asks extremely difficult and delicate questions that open a space for dialogue. It is also a beautiful book to hold and read. If only our public debates had Kapil’s subtlety, refinement, and distinction. How to Wash a Heart has already won an award in my heart, by merely beating, striving, pumping blood.'David Morgan O'Connor, RHINO Poetry'The book’s final pages, both the end of the sequence itself and the paratextual material, are devastating. How To Wash A Heart confronts “the link / Between creativity / And survival” – arguing that creativity is necessary for survival, but sadly not sufficient – more skilfully and innovatively than anything else I have read this year.'Dominic Leonard, The TLS'Bhanu’s book is kind of like walking into a kaleidoscope of heritage... It’s not like other books this year, subtle, nuanced and in the astro-plane only really wild poets get into. If the book was in a pub it would be the lady with the trolley full of black bags, you always wondered what was in them and now you can find out. Go on, go have a peek, let the words wash over you, let them roll through you and when you come out you will have the stench of something new and precious.'Arji Manuelpillai, Out-Spoken'How to Wash a Heart with its urgent salutory lessons about ways in which immigrants are unhoused and unmade punches above its weight of 44 pages.'Gail Low, Dundee University Review of the Arts'Kapil’s memorable protest depends upon her ability to overturn poetic expectation. She is never conventional… [in How To Wash A Heart] an assertive beauty surfaces from turmoil.'Kate Kellaway, The Observer‘Bhanu Kapil is a major writer, producing works that make you think and feel differently about the world, that end up wiring your brain differently. She explores racism, violence and the psychological effects of diaspora and uncertainty on the body of the immigrant in a poetry that is at once innovative and relatively comprehensible.’ Steven Waling, Magma Poetry'This book speaks of the wider experience of the refugee or immigrant. Notions of home and love change over time and become distorted so that the narrator becomes alienated both from their current situation and their own past. The poems capture perfectly the loneliness of being a guest in someone else’s home and in a country that is not your own. The conflicting emotions of such a situation – gratitude, indebtedness, confusion, discomfort, anxiety, fear, anger. [...] This is a beautiful, furious heart-rending book – utterly compelling.'Julia Webb, Under the Radar 'It is noteworthy, then, that How to Wash A Heart began its life in the UK, published by Liverpool University Press’s Pavilion Poetry. This represents a pivot in Kapil’s practice: after decades of living and working in the United States, she has also returned to the UK, a move that has coincided with her receiving greater recognition in her home country. [...] How to Wash A Heart speaks deliberately to the specifics of Britain: its racism, and its reception of immigrants. [...]What I love about Kapil is her concision, arrived at through processes of sifting which refuse to be rushed, which challenge us all to fully answer the question: What do you inherit, and what do you reproduce? The power of Kapil’s writing lies in her ability to evoke violence with a gentle touch. [...] Her books are spaces to rest, to lay down your armfuls of things. Now that she finds herself back here, on the near ground of Britain, it will be a joy and a wonder to see what she makes of it and our barrage of inheritances.'Stephanie Sy-Quia, The White Review'The poetic energy here doesn’t lie in the vocabulary but in the controlled fear that stalks those line breaks, interrupting each sentence as if the guest is choosing her words carefully, aware that someone may be listening behind the open door. [...] How to Wash a Heart tells a story about the ‘inclusive, complex, molecular’ chemistry of temporary host-guest bonds. But it produces that reality effect by hosting a series of unwelcome images that Kapil the artist can’t expel. [...] Kapil is both dissident and artist, of course: an agitator who won’t allow self-congratulation in through the back door, and the female artist using her body as a lightning conductor to pick up the violence latent in a place, or in her audience.'Peter Howarth, London Review of Books
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers Tolkien J Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
Book SynopsisUnavailable for more than 70 years, this early but important work is published for the first time with Tolkien's Corrigan' poems and other supporting material, including a prefatory note by Christopher Tolkien.Set In Britain's land beyond the seas' during the Age of Chivalry, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun tells of a childless Breton Lord and Lady (the Aotrou' and Itroun' of the title) and the tragedy that befalls them when Aotrou seeks to remedy their situation with the aid of a magic potion obtained from a corrigan, or malevolent fairy. When the potion succeeds and Itroun bears twins, the corrigan returns seeking her fee, and Aotrou is forced to choose between betraying his marriage and losing his life.Coming from the darker side of J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, together with the two shorter Corrigan' poems that lead up to it and which are also included, was the outcome of a comparatively short but intense period in Tolkien''s life when he was deeply engaged with Celtic, and particularly Breton, myth and legend.Originally written in 1930 and long out of print, this early but seminal work is an important addition to the non-Middle-earth portion of his canon and should be set alongside Tolkien's other retellings of myth and legend, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur and The Story of Kullervo. Like these works, it belongs to a small but important corpus of his ventures into real-world' mythologies, each of which in its own way would be a formative influence on his own legendarium.Trade Review‘The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun is a poem in the tradition of the medieval "lay", also illustrated by the Lay of the Children of Húrin, and in the Lay of Leithian. This 556-verse-long poem tells the tragic story of a lord who sacrifices his life by love: in order to have a child with his wife, then to remain faithful to his spouse, he gives his life to a witch.’ The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate website ‘The language is as time-worn as a Runic engraving yet clear as a bell … The holy and the unholy imbue everything. It is a world captured in stained glass.’ Daily Telegraph
£16.14
HarperCollins Publishers Hamlet
Book SynopsisExam board: AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas, WJECLevel & Subject: A Level English LiteratureFirst teaching: September 2015Next exams: 2025This edition of Hamlet is perfect for A-level students, with the complete play in an accessible format, on-page notes, introduction setting the context, timeline, character and theme indexes.Affordable high quality complete play for HamletDemystify vocabulary with notes on the page and concise commentarySet the scene with perfectly pitched introductions that introduce key contexts, concerns and stylistic features, and examine different performances and interpretationsRecall plot summaries at the beginning of each sceneSupport A Level revision and essay writing with theme and character indexesHelp with social, historical and literary context with the bespoke timeline of Shakespeare's life and timesTrade Review“The new Collins Classroom Classic editions are perfect for schools – clear text, bright covers, a good size for pockets and bags, and a great price that makes buying new class or cohort sets very attractive in these budget-conscious times.” de Stafford School
£6.49
HarperCollins Publishers The Mirror and the Light RSC Stage Adaptation
Book SynopsisHilary Mantel and Ben Miles' exhilarating stage adaptation of The Mirror and the Light, one of 2021's must-see theatrical events, and the long awaited conclusion to the Oliver Award-winning Wolf Hall Trilogy. England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn's fate has been sealed by a hired French executioner. it now befalls Jane Seymour to deliver King Henry VIII the healthy heir he craves. Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son from the gutters of Putney, has knocked down everyone in his path: established at the right hand of the king, he is now the second most powerful man in England. But what will you do, an astute witness asks, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?Hilary Mantel's twice Booker Prize-winning trilogy is the outstanding literary achievement of recent times. Following Oliver and Tony Award-winning productions of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, hailed as a landmark and must-see theatrical event on both sides of the Atlantic, Mantel and Ben MiTrade Review Praise for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies on stage: ‘A gripping piece of narrative theatre … history made manifest’ Guardian ‘Enthralling … splendidly entertaining and at times deeply touching’ Daily Telegraph ‘Gripping yet darkly funny … a bold, unforgettable lesson in history and politics’ The Times ‘An impressive feat, a compelling drama played out across the canvas of a nation soaked in rain and mud and blood … accessible and consistently engrossing’ Hollywood Reporter ‘A fast-paced political thriller … fiendishly engaging’ Time Out New York
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Monologue of a Dog
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Poems Blake
Book SynopsisWriter and religious rebel, William Blake (1757-1827) sowed the seeds for Romanticism in his innovative poems concerning faith and the visions that inspired him throughout his life. This book presents a collection of his greatest works, spanning his entire poetic life.
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Elder Edda
Book SynopsisCompiled by an unknown scribe in Iceland around 1270, and based on sources dating back centuries earlier, these mythological and heroic poems tell of gods and mortals from an ancient era: the giant-slaying Thor, the doomed Völsung family, the Hel-ride of Brynhild and the cruelty of Atli the Hun. Eclectic, incomplete and fragmented, these verses nevertheless retain their stark beauty and their power to enthrall, opening a window on to the thoughts, beliefs and hopes of the Vikings and their world.
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd Man and Superman Bernard Shaw Library
Book SynopsisExclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of the first great twentieth-century English play and a classic exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes—part of the official Bernard Shaw Library A Penguin Classic After the death of her father, Ann Whitefield becomes the joint ward of two men: the respectable Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner, author of “The Revolutionist’s Handbook.” Believing marriage would prevent him from achieving his higher intellectual and political ambitions, Tanner is horrified to discover that Ann intends to marry him, and he flees to Spain with the determined young woman in hot pursuit. The chase even leads them to the underworld, where the characters’ alter egos discuss questions of human nature and philosophy in a lively debate in a scene often performed separately as “Don Juan in Hell.” In Man and Superman, Shaw combined seriousness with comedy to create a Trade ReviewBy the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature“[Shaw] did his best in redressing the fateful unbalance between truth and reality, in lifting mankind to a higher rung of social maturity. He often pointed a scornful finger at human frailty, but his jests were never at the expense of humanity.” —Thomas Mann “Shaw will not allow complacency; he hates second-hand opinions; he attacks fashion; he continually challenges and unsettles, questioning and provoking us even when he is making us laugh. And he is still at it. No cliché or truism of contemporary life is safe from him.” —Michael Holroyd “In his works Shaw left us his mind. . . . Today we have no Shavian wizard to awaken us with clarity and paradox, and the loss to our national intelligence is immense.” —The Sunday Times “He was a Tolstoy with jokes, a modern Dr. Johnson, a universal genius who on his own modest reckoning put even Shakespeare in the shade.” —The Independent “His plays were superb exercises in high-level argument on every issue under the sun, from feminism and God, to war and eternity, but they were also hits—and still are.” —The Daily Mail
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Poems
Book SynopsisThe poems of Charles Baudelaire are filled with explicit and unsettling imagery, depicting with intensity every day subjects ignored by French literary conventions of his time. ''Tableaux parisiens'' portrays the brutal life of Paris''s thieves, drunkards and prostitutes amid the debris of factories and poorhouses. In love poems such as ''Le Beau Navire'', flights of lyricism entwine with languorous eroticism, while prose poems such as ''La Chambre Double'' deal with the agonies of artistic creation and mortality. With their startling combination of harsh reality and sublime beauty, formal ingenuity and revolutionary poetic language, these poems, including a generous selection from Les Fleurs du Mal, show Baudelaire as one of the most influential poets of the nineteenth century.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Paradiso Paradise v 3 The Divine Comedy Penguin
Book SynopsisThe radiant climax to Dante's awe-inspiring epic, in a definitive new translation Having plunged to the utmost depths of Hell and climbed Mount Purgatory in the first two parts of The Divine Comedy, Dante now ascends to Heaven, guided by his beloved Beatrice, to continue his search for God. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise, he grows ever closer to experiencing divine love in the overwhelming presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire, and enlightenment, Dante exercised all of his learning and wit, wrath and tenderness in his creation of one of the greatest of all Christian allegories. This edition prints Robin Kirkpatrick's impressive new translation alongside Dante's original Italian. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout hisTrade Review“A masterly translation.” ―Judith Thurman, The New Yorker“Kirkpatrick brings a more nuanced sense of the Italian and a more mediated appreciation of the poem's construction than nearly all of his competitors.” —The Times (London)“We gain much from Kirkpatrick’s fidelity to syntax and nuance. . . . His introduction . . . tells you, very readable indeed, pretty much all you need for a heightened appreciation of the work.”—The Guardian“Likely to be the best modern version of Dante . . . The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism.” —Bernard O’Donoghue“This version is the first to bring together poetry and scholarship in the very body of the translation—a deeply informed version of Dante that is also a pleasure to read.” —David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania
£11.69
