A haiku, an ode, a sonnet, a limerick, an elegy ... more poetry,please.
Poetry Books
Penguin Books Ltd Death of a Salesman
Book SynopsisArthur Miller''s extraordinary masterpiece, Death of a Salesman changed the course of modern theatre, and has lost none of its power as an examination of American life. ''A man is not an orange. You can''t eat the fruit and throw the peel away''Willy Loman is on his last legs. Failing at his job, dismayed at his the failure of his sons, Biff and Happy, to live up to his expectations, and tortured by his jealousy at the success and happiness of his neighbour Charley and his son Bernard, Willy spirals into a well of regret, reminiscence, and A scathing indictment of the ultimate failure of the American dream, and the empty pursuit of wealth and success, is a harrowing journey. In creating Willy Loman, his destructively insecure anti-hero, Miller defined his aim as being ''to set forth what happens when a man does not have a grip on the forces of life''.
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd The Glass Menagerie
Book SynopsisTennessee Williams''s evocation of loneliness and lost love, The Glass Menagerie is one of his most powerful and moving plays. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes a new introduction by Robert Bray.Abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her earlier, more gracious life in Blue Mountain when she was pursued by ''gentleman callers''. Her son Tom, a poet with a job in a warehouse, longs for adventure and escape from his mother''s suffocating embrace, while Laura, her shy crippled daughter, has her glass menagerie and her memories. Amanda is desperate to find her daughter a husband, but when the long-awaited gentleman caller does arrive, Laura''s romantic illusions are crushed.Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was born in Columbus, Mississippi. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his family to St Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940 for his play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and 1955. Among his many other plays Penguin have published The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), The Night of the Iguana (1961), and Small Craft Warnings (1972).If you enjoyed The Glass Menagerie, you might like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.''Tennessee Williams will live as long as drama itself''Peter Shaffer, author of Equus
£8.54
Classical Comics Midsummer Nights Dream Classical Comics
Book SynopsisThe entire play in comic book form and in quick modern English for a fast-paced read!
£9.49
Candlestick Press Ten Poems about Getting Older
Book Synopsis
£7.41
Penguin Random House Group Take Me With You
Book SynopsisFor readers of Rupi Kaur and Alison Bechdel, a small book with big messages from one of the most quotable and influential poets of our time.
£15.29
Samuel French Ltd The Diary of Anne Frank Play Acting Edition
Book SynopsisFew more poignant true stories emerged from World War II than the diary of young Anne Frank. Published long afterwards by her father, the only family survivor, it records the minutiae of twenty-five months that two Jewish families spent in hiding from the Gestapo in an Amsterdam warehouse attic. The constant secrecy, growing hunger and friction of living in such cramped conditions could not dull Anne''s vibrant personality or her passion for living.
£14.42
Flapjack Press A Quiet Promise
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£11.40
Arcturus Publishing Twelfth Night
Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and attended school in the town. He married a local girl, Ann Hathaway and they had three children. Shakespeare eventually found his way to London where he established himself as part of a theatrical troupe, also writing plays for them to perform. His life and career spanned the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I (VI of Scotland) before his death in 1616.
£7.59
Carcanet Press Ltd The Natural Way
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£11.69
Candlestick Press Ten Poems for a Wedding
Book Synopsis
£7.41
Arachne Press The Arctic Diaries
Book SynopsisWhen the fisherman dies Fleinvær stories spill out silver strings, like guts from a spring catch. But between these pages they survive. The Arctic Diaries chart generations of the characters, myths and misremembered details that make up the oral traditions of a windswept archipelago in Norway’s far north. Created over a single arctic winter, using stories gathered from the last surviving fisherman of Langholmen, this collection of poems are part history, part field notes, exploring what role the outsider plays in preserving the experience of another.
£8.99
Pan Macmillan Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
Book Synopsis'Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to!' – Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's TaleThe Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories.Now, in Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, Natalie Haynes – broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist – redresses this imbalance. Taking Pandora and her jar (the box came later) as the starting point, she puts the women of the Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk.Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories. And when they do, those women are often painted as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil. But Pandora – the first woman, who according to legend unloosed chaos upon the world – was not a villain, and even Medea and Phaedra have more nuanced stories than generations of retellings might indicate.After millennia of stories telling of gods and men, be they Zeus or Odysseus, the voices that sing from these pages are those of Hera, Athena and Artemis, and of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Eurydice and Penelope.'A treasure box of classical delights. Never has ancient misogyny been presented with so much wit and style' - historian Amanda ForemanTrade ReviewReading Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes: Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to, and how they sometimes made idiots of . . . but read on! -- Margaret AtwoodIf I'm ever prosecuted, I'd like Natalie Haynes to defend me. She argues persuasively, carving out space for women denied a voice (Medusa), overshadowed (Jocasta) and unjustly condemned (Helen of Troy) . . . Agile, rich, subversive, Pandora's Jar proves that the classics are far from dead, and keep evolving with us. -- Madeleine Feeny * Mail on Sunday *Haynes is a brilliant classicist as well as a stand-up comedian and with her latest offering, Pandora's Jar, she has effectively written the first textbook codifying this new feminist take on the Greek myths. -- Neil Mackay * Herald *Hugely enjoyable and witty * Guardian *Impassioned and informed . . . When Haynes gets down to retelling the stories . . . and teasing out their distortions and elisions, the book flies. * Sunday Times *An erudite, funny and sometimes angry attempt to fill in the blank spaces. -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer *The best kind of academic writing; engaged, engaging and fun (Beyoncé, Ray Harryhausen and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all turn up within). * Herald, Christmas Books 2020 *Witty and frequently surprising -- Farah Abdessamad * TLS *Beyoncé, Star Trek, Ray Harryhausen . . . the most enjoyable book about Greek myths you will ever read, absolutely brimming with subversive enthusiasm. -- Mark HaddonWitty, erudite and subversive, this takes the women of Greek myth—the women who are sidelined, vilified, misunderstood or ignored—and puts them centre stage. -- Samantha Ellis, author of How to Be a Heroine and Take CourageNatalie Haynes is beyond brilliant. Pandora’s Jar is a treasure box of classical delights. Never has ancient misogyny been presented with so much wit and style. -- Amanda ForemanNatalie Haynes is the nation's muse -- Adam RutherfordNatalie Haynes is both a witty and an erudite guide. She wears her extensive learning lightly and deftly drags the Classics into the modern world. I loved it. -- Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life
£10.44
Faber & Faber Birthday Letters Faber Poetry
Book SynopsisTed Hughes''s Birthday Letters are addressed, with just two exceptions, to Sylvia Plath, the American poet to whom he was married. They were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963, and represent Ted Hughes''s only account of his relationship with Plath and of the psychological drama that led both to the writing of her greatest poems and to her death. The book became an instant bestseller on its publication in 1998 and won the Forward Prize for Poetry in the same year. ''To read [Birthday Letters] is to experience the psychic equivalent of the bends. It takes you down to levels of pressure where the undertruths of sadness and endurance leave you gasping.'' Seamus Heaney ''Even if it were possible to set aside its biographical value . . . its linguistic, technical and imaginative feats would guarantee its future. Hughes is one of the most important poets of the century and this is his greate
£11.69
Alma Books Ltd Poems from the Moor: Annotated Edition
Book Synopsis“Though Earth and moon were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou wert left alone, Every Existence would exist in Thee.” From the transcendent beauty of nature observed on the Yorkshire moors to fierce and forceful confrontations of mortality, Emily Brontë’s poems are powerful and passionate works that eloquently elaborate upon her sister Charlotte’s description of her as ""a solitude-loving raven, no gentle dove”. While only twenty-one of Emily Brontë’s poems were published in her lifetime, her poetic oeuvre is rich and varied, and not only includes visionary poems such as ‘No Coward Soul Is Mine’ and ‘Remembrance’, but also features the poems that describe the imagined realm of Gondal and its inhabitants, which she created with her sister Anne.Trade ReviewMy sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a livid hillside her mind could make an Eden. -- Charlotte Brontë
£7.59
Faber & Faber North
Book SynopsisIn North Seamus Heaney found a myth which allowed him to articulate a vision of Ireland - its people, history and landscape. Here the Irish experience is refracted through images drawn from different parts of the Northern European experience, and the idea of the north allows the poet to contemplate the violence on his home ground in relation to memories of the Scandinavian and English invasions which have marked Irish history so indelibly.
£11.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC King Lear: Third Series
Book Synopsis'By far the best edition of King Lear - in respect of both textual and other matters - that we now have.'John Lyon, English Language Notes'This volume is a treasure-trove of precise information and stimulating comments on practically every aspect of the Lear-universe. I know of no other edition which I would recommend with such confidence: to students, professional colleagues and also the 'educated public'.'Dieter Mehl, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol 134Trade Review'Lear is trapped into a position of anger, having embarked on a game of vanity with his daughters: who loves me most?' * Michael Coveney, The Independent, 8.12.10 *'Of all the Shakespeare roles, King Lear is the actor's Everest... To play this you need to have lived long enough to know or see suffering, madness, and human folly.' * Libby Purves, The Times, 8.12.10 *'King Lear is perhaps the greatest of all Shakespeare's dramas, but it is so harrowing, so despairing, so graphic in its cruelty, that it is also a test of endurance.' * Charles Spencer, The Daily Telagraph, 8.12.10 *'If Shakespeare's plays were mountains, King Lear would be the entire Himalayas.' * Paul Callan, Daily Express, 8.12.10 *'The play - arguably the Bard's greatest' * Paul Callan, Daily Express, 8.12.10 *''Lear' is an undeniably majestic work; * Matt Wolf, The International Herald Tribune, 14.12.10 *
£10.90
Vintage Publishing Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize‘Reading Vuong is like watching a fish move: he manages the varied currents of English with muscled intuition.’ New YorkerAn extraordinary debut from a young Vietnamese American, Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a book of poetry unlike any other. Steeped in war and cultural upheaval and wielding a fresh new language, Vuong writes about the most profound subjects – love and loss, conflict, grief, memory and desire – and attends to them all with lines that feel newly-minted, graceful in their cadences, passionate and hungry in their tender, close attention: ‘…the chief of police/facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola./A palm-sized photo of his father soaking/beside his left ear.’ This is an unusual, important book: both gentle and visceral, vulnerable and assured, and its blend of humanity and power make it one of the best first collections of poetry to come out of America in years.‘These are poems of exquisite beauty, unashamed of romance, and undaunted by looking directly into the horrors of war, the silences of history. One of the most important debut collections for a generation.’ Andrew McMillan Winner of the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection A Guardian / Daily Telegraph Book of the YearPBS Summer RecommendationTrade ReviewNight Sky With Exit Wounds…startled me with its urgency and its relevance. A eerily sure-footed debut. -- Rupert Thomson * Observer, Books of the Year *Vuong writes with a piercing, dreamlike clarity. -- Tristram Fane Saunders * Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year *Reading Vuong is like watching a fish move: he manages the varied currents of English with muscled intuition … His lines are both long and short, his pose narrative and lyric, his diction formal and insouciant. From the outside, Vuong has fashioned a poetry of inclusion. * New Yorker *Ocean Vuong is one of my auto-buy authors. I keep recommending his Night Sky With Exit Wounds to everyone; I can’t shout loud enough about it… I have quite a complicated relationship with what’s considered "classical poetry" but then someone like Ocean Vuong comes along, and he’s doing something so exciting that you can’t help but get caught up in it. -- Sara Collins * Refinery29 *The poetry is a conduit for a life in which violence and delicacy collide… I like the fragility, resilience and the sense that the stories that need telling are hardest to tell – a difficulty Ocean Vuong is courageously minded to overcome. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer *There is a powerful emotional undertow to these poems that springs from Mr Vuong’s sincerity and candour, and from his ability to capture specific moments in rime with photographic clarity and a sense of the evanescence of all earthly things. -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *Ocean Vuong is the Walt Whitman of Vietnamese American literature. Lyrical, expansive, sexual, provocative, he sings of the Vietnamese body and of Vietnamese history. -- Viet Thanh Nguyen * Literary Hub *The operatic voice of the book is vulnerable and unpredictable. Some of its strongest poems are also the strangest… It is an impressive, uneven, moving book about painful and important subjects – and is the work of a young poet who might, excitingly, say anything next. -- Jeremy Noel-Tod * The Sunday Times *Many of the poems in this, Vuong’s debut collection, achieve lift-off amid comparable scenes of drama and desperation… This is a book full of promise. -- David Wheatley * Literary Review *Vuong writes in what may be one of the most unfashionable modes of recent decades, in the richly meditative style of Rainer Maria Rilke. And, almost unbelievably, he does so successfully… Vuong’s roomy, cool, risky poems are more than promising, and this is an exciting and compelling book. -- John McAuliffe * Irish Times *Taking war and cultural upheaval in its stride, Night Sky with Exit Wounds is an assured but open debut collection. It’s accessible to non-poetry readers while offering sufficient depth to keep the experts engaged. -- Aimee Grant Cumberbatch * Evening Standard *If you only read one new book of poetry this year, make it Ocean Vuong’s game-changing debut collection. Night Sky With Exit Wounds is breathtakingly beautiful, gut-wrenching and sublime… Phenomenal. * Attitude *One of the most extraordinary first collections of poems in recent memory… The poems sear through the heart, Vuong finding the words and feelings to capture moments with complete clarity. -- Alex Scott * Cent *His style is not unlike a wall of sounds, a relatively consistent, arrestedly pubescent palette of desire and obsession, turned up high enough to hit the pulse. -- Declan Ryan * Times Literary Supplement *From its opening lines...the book brims with precise, surreal, erotic imagery… Vuong authoritatively lays claim to a range of symbols and tropes... Vuong possesses a large and unusual imagination… Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a remarkable debut. Where Vuong is headed is anyone’s guess, but you’ll want to go with him. -- Paul Batchelor * New Statesman *Vuong’s intimate lyrical voice, his precise, stark imagery and engagement with gay sexuality construct a familiar story of loss… Balancing memory and silence with erudition, Vuong’s poetry resists being so easily pinned down… Vuong’s poems, written with intelligence and tenderness, offer new spaces for becoming. -- Sandeep Parmar * Guardian *His debut collection, praised for its “precise, stark” imagery, can be read both as a personal story – of gay sexuality, absent fathers and hyphenated identities – and as a highly erudite exploration of poetry’s possibilities. -- Martin Doyle * Irish Times *His debut collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, is the work of a man with history on his back, even if he has had to imagine some of it into being again. He brings a mythmaker’s insistence on being seen and heard to subjects ranging from the death of Telemachus’s father, from Homeric myth, to the fall of Saigon and common-or-garden masturbation. -- Claire Armistead * Guardian *Vuong’s words writhe and spin – his use of English is astonishing. He’s a smelter at his poetry, making words transform into something other than letters and meaning…. His gay love poems are stark, beautiful and utterly unnerving in their uncompromising adoration… A magical journey into Vuong’s imagination and talents and an astonishing debut collection. * Gscene *Night Sky With Exit Wounds…contains poems of finely pitched, operatic feeling that unpick the violence and fragility of masculinity with wisdom and humour. -- Jeremy Noel-Tod * Sunday Times *
£11.40
Andrews McMeel Publishing She Outgrew the Wound
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£14.24
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Romeo and Juliet
Book SynopsisRomeo and Juliet is the world's most famous drama of tragic young love. Defying the feud which divides their families, Romeo and Juliet enjoy the fleeting rapture of courtship, marriage and sexual fulfilment; but a combination of old animosities and new coincidences brings them to suicidal deaths. This play offers a rich mixture of romantic lyricism, bawdy comedy, intimate harmony and sudden violence. Long successful in the theatre, it has also generated numerous operas, ballets and films; and these have helped to make Romeo and Juliet perennially topical.
£8.54
Smokestack Books The untsiad
Book Synopsis
£7.59
Candlestick Press Ten Poems about Dogs
£6.95
Oxford University Press Paradise Lost
Book SynopsisFrom almost the moment of its publication in 1667, Paradise Lost was considered a classic. This new edition is derived from the editors modernized Oxford Authors text, with a new introduction that discusses the poem's complexity and critical history, and on-page notes to gloss language and allusions.
£8.54
Faber & Faber Ariel Faber Paperbacks
Book SynopsisThe poems in Sylvia Plath''s Ariel, including many of her best-known such as ''Lady Lazarus'', ''Daddy'', ''Edge'' and ''Paralytic'', were all written between the publication in 1960 of Plath''s first book, The Colossus, and her death in 1963.''If the poems are despairing, vengeful and destructive, they are at the same time tender, open to things, and also unusually clever, sardonic, hardminded . . . They are works of great artistic purity and, despite all the nihilism, great generosity . . . the book is a major literary event.'' A. Alvarez in the Observer
£11.69
Wordsworth Editions Ltd King Lear
Book SynopsisEdited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics’ Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare’s works. The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal. King Lear has been widely acclaimed as Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedy. Elemental and passionate, it encompasses the horrific and the heart-rending. Love and hate, loyalty and treachery, cruelty and self-sacrifice: all these contend in a tempestuous drama which has become an enduring classic of the world’s literature. In the theatre and on screen King Lear continues to challenge and enthral. This Wordsworth edition of King Lear provides a comprehensive, integrated text of the play.
£5.96
Faber & Faber One Lark One Horse
Book SynopsisMichael Hofmann is renowned as one of our most brilliant critics and translators; that he is also regarded as among our most respected poets one of the definitive bodies of work of the last half-century', TLS is all the more impressive for his relatively concentrated output. One Lark, One Horse will be his fifth collection of poems since his debut in 1983, and his first since Approximately Nowhere in 1999. But it is also one of the most anticipated gatherings of new work in years. In style, it is as unmistakable as ever: sometimes funny, sometimes caustic; world-facing and yet intimate; and shows a bright mind burning fiercely over the European imagination. Approaching his sixtieth birthday, the poet explores where he finds himself, geographically and in life, treating with wit and compassion such universal themes as ageing and memory, place, and the difficulty for the individual to exist at all in an ever bigger and more bestial world. One Lark, On
£13.49
"Utter" & Press Tim Key: Chapters
Book Synopsis
£14.25
HarperCollins Publishers Twelfth Night
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.If music be the food of love, play on;Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die.'A comedic romance of mistaken identity, Twelfth Night begins with a shipwreck, splitting up Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian. Alone in a strange land, Viola disguises herself as a male servant, Cesario, in order to work for the Duke Orsino. Orsino is in love with Lady Olivia, but it is Cesario that Olivia falls for. A farcical tale of misplaced love, confusion, gender-swapping and aspiration, Twelfth Night remains one of Shakespeare's best-loved and inventive comedies.
£5.62
Penguin Books Ltd Inferno The Divine Comedy I
Book SynopsisPart of Penguin''s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Describing Dante''s descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonising torture, Dante encounters doomed souls including the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicide Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all. For it is only by encountering Satan, in the heart of Hell, that he can truly understand the tragedy of sin.Trade Review[Coralie Bickford-Smith's] recent work for Penguin Classics is...nothing short of glorious * Anna Cole Co. *
£17.09
Carcanet Press Ltd Emotional Support Horse
Book SynopsisEmotional Support Horse tracks the tragicomedy of grief, and out of low vision, bereavement and eco-stress blends poems of startling wit, verve and solace. A woman longs to transform into Nicola Walker in a cop car, or a Hungarian Vizsla, or just to find an equal footing with her doctor. Personal and planetary fractures blur in these vivid, dreamlike pages that will speak to anyone who has faced down confusion and rupture, when they strike. In part soulful, in part self-help, the poems veer between droll and despairing, their swings from high to low and back again reflecting a self adrift on a choppy sea. A self, however, not alone, but accompanied throughout by a host of other species. From earthworms to wolfhounds, flamingos to Konic ponies, the world of Emotional Support Horse flickers with light and life, charting sorrow''s depths even as it stumbles upon joy.
£10.79
Canongate Books poyums
Book SynopsisFrom Len Pennie, the performance poet sensation, comes an electric debut collection about loving, learning, surviving, growing and giving - an instant Sunday Times bestseller
£10.44
Oxford University Press The Tempest
Book Synopsis''How beauteous mankind is! O brave new worldThat has such people in''t!''Performed variously as escapist fantasy, celebratory fiction, and political allegory, The Tempest is one of the plays in which Shakespeare''s genius as a poetic dramatist found its fullest expression. Significantly, it was placed first when published in the First Folio of 1623, and is now generally seen as the playwright''s most penetrating statement about his art.The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare''s works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare''s work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare''s work.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.
£6.64
Canelo Good Occasionally Rhyming
Book SynopsisA celebration of the Shipping Forecast in poetry and prose
£11.69
Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
Book SynopsisWith a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. W. B. Yeats was Romantic and Modernist, mystical dreamer and leader of the Irish Literary Revival, Nobel prizewinner, dramatist and, above all, poet. He began writing with the intention of putting his 'very self' into his poems. T. S. Eliot, one of many who proclaimed the Irishman's greatness, described him as 'one of those few whose history is the history of their own time, who are part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them'. For anyone interested in the literature of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, Yeats's work is essential. This volume gathers the full range of his published poetry, from the hauntingly beautiful early lyrics (by which he is still fondly remembered) to the magnificent later poems which put beyond question his status as major poet of modern times. Paradoxical, proud and passionate, Yeats speaks today as eloquently as ever.
£6.23
Oxford University Press Theogony and Works and Days
Book SynopsisHesiod, who lived in Boetia in the late eighth century BC, is one of the oldest known, and possibly the oldest of Greek poets. His Theogony contains a systematic genealogy of the gods from the beginning of the world and an account of the struggles of the Titans. In contrast, Works and Days is a compendium of moral and practical advice on husbandry, and throws unique and fascinating light on archaic Greek society. As well as offering the earliest known sources for the myths of Pandora, Prometheus and the Golden Age, Hesiod''s poetry provides a valuable account of the ethics and superstitions of the society in which he lived. Unlike Homer, Hesiod writes about himself and his family, and he stands out as the first personality in European literature. This new translation, by a leading expert on the Hesiodic poems combines accuracy with readability. It is accompanied by an introduction and explanatory notes. 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.Trade Review'This is a very welcome publication, an authoritative translation of a major greek author at a reasonable price. Essential reading for classicists' J. G. Hourie, Dept. of Classics, University of Edinburgh' Readers who have no previous knowledge of Hesoid will find this an extremely accessible book, written in such a way that the non-specialist will be able to read, follow and enjoy these works. This is in part due to Professor West's excellent translations and partly due to his real and profound interest in his subject, which is further reflectd by a most informative and useful introduction.' The Greek Rreview'So much better than the corresponding Penguin translation of Hesiod. The introduction is splendid.' P. Walcot, University College, Cardiff.'The edition is admirably produced, mercifully free from misprints ... an edition with a stimulating Introduction, a very readable translation' JACT Review'West ... has now produced fine translations of these poems into fresh, lively and eminently readable English. It must quickly establish itself as the translation for English-speaking readers.' Jennifer R. March, University College, London. Classical Review
£7.99
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Antony and Cleopatra
Book SynopsisEdited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies: a spectacular, widely-ranging drama of love and war, passion and politics. Antony is divided between the responsibilities of imperial power and the intensities of his sexual relationship with Cleopatra. She, variously generous and ruthless, loving and jealous, petulant and majestic, emerges as Shakespeare's most complex depiction of a woman: ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety.’ Unsurpassed in sumptous eloquence and powerful characterisation, Anthony and Cleopatra deservedly retains its popularity in the theatre. Its insights into the corruptions of power and the ambiguities of desire remain timely. This volume is part of the Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, in which each volume has been edited by Cedric Watts. Readers wishing to know more of Cedric Watts’ work should buy his ‘Shakespeare Puzzles’, published by PublishNation (ISBN 978-1-291-66410-2), available from Amazon (both in printed and Kindle editions) and through all good bookshops.
£5.96
Faber & Faber Scanty Plot of Ground
Book SynopsisAn essential anthology of beloved classics, hidden treasures and standout contemporary examples of this ever-vital and enthralling verse form.In the introduction to his selection of some of the greatest sonnets ever written, Paul Muldoon reminds us that part of the reason for the durability' of the sonnet is its very specific duration'. It is the perfect length for what Dante Gabriel Rossetti described as a moment's monument' or William Wordsworth as a scanty plot of ground' offering brief solace' for those who have felt the weight of too much liberty'. Among the poets included in this centuries-spanning edition are Elizabeth Bishop, Wanda Coleman, John Donne, Terrance Hayes, John Keats, Claude McKay, Edna St Vincent Millay, Christina Rossetti, William Shakespeare, Patricia Smith and W. B. Yeats. There are Paul Muldoon''s own translations of sonnets by Charles Baudelaire, Rainer Maria Rilke, César Vallejo, and a scurrilous collaboration by Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.
£14.24
Pan Macmillan Poetry Prescription Calm
Book SynopsisA small but significant, inspiring anthology from Deborah Alma, the founder of the Poetry Pharmacy.
£9.50
Batsford The Poetry of Flowers
Book Synopsis A rich collection of poetry that celebrates the beauty and symbolism of flowers. Beautifully illustrated with nostalgic illustrations of a range of beautiful blooms, this book includes a diverse range of poems. From verses celebrating the beginning of spring with the emergence of the snowdrops, daffodils, and bluebells to poems that honour the summer colour of asters, the heady scent of jasmine, and the brazen sunflower. The classic poets are featured including Shakespeare, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Seamus Heaney. There''s also range of rich poetry from less-famous names which have stood the test of time and evoke nature's beauty.
£11.69
Verve Poetry Press My Dearest Friend
Book Synopsis
£10.79
Samuel French Ltd Steel Magnolias A Play
Book SynopsisHilarious and touching, this play for six women is set in a beauty parlour in Louisiana. Through four scenes spanning three years the staff and customers engage in small-town gossip but we see a deep strength and purposefulness emerge when Shelby - a diabetic - dies following a kidney transplant operation.
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers A Midsummer Nights Dream
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.My Oberon! what visions have I seen!Methought I was enamoured of an ass.'When four young lovers flee from Athens and become lost in an enchanted wood, they stumble into a fairy world where King Oberon, and Queen Titania, are feuding over ownership of a young Indian prince. Seeking his revenge on Titania, Oberon and his servant Puck begin a magical, yet farcical chain of events where all become interwoven in a comedic and mischievous play about the difficulties of love.
£5.62
Gemini Books Group Ltd Elizabeth Barrett Browning
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£13.49
Carcanet Press Ltd Billy Nibs Buckshot The Complete Works
Book SynopsisThis collection of 200 tankas has no Great Purpose, apart from explaining the Meaning of Life. In an firework-display of 31-syllable sparkles, probably set off by accident, it lights up any corner of things done, thought, felt, seen, suffered & enjoyed that it pleases.
£11.69
Candlestick Press Christmas Tree
£6.95
Nick Hern Books Jerusalem
Book SynopsisJez Butterworth's hugely acclaimed, prize-winning play - a comic, contemporary vision of life in England's green and pleasant land. On St George's Day, the morning of the local country fair, Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, local waster and Lord of Misrule, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants to be taken to the fair, a vengeful father wants to give him a serious kicking, and a motley crew of mates wants his ample supply of drugs and alcohol. Jerusalem premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in July 2009 in a production directed by Ian Rickson and starring Mark Rylance. It transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End in January 2010, and played on Broadway in 2011. Jez Butterworth's play won the Evening Standard Best Play Award and the Critics Circle and Whatsonstage.com awards for Best New Play.Trade Review'Unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century' * Guardian *'Tender, touching, and blessed with both a ribald humour and a haunting sense of the mystery of things... one of the must-see events of the summer' * Telegraph *'Jez Butterworth's gorgeous, expansive new play keeps coming at its audience in unpredictable gusts, rolling from comic to furious, from winsome to bawdy' * Observer *'Storming... restores one's faith in the power of theatre' * Independent *'Show of the year' * Time Out *'Arguably the best play of the 21st century so far, a work whose importance and resonance has only increased since its premiere in 2009' * Whatsonstage (in January 2022) *
£10.44
Pan Macmillan Three Wise Men
Book SynopsisAn enchanting new instalment in Carol Ann Duffy's Christmas poem series, complete with gorgeous illustrations.
£11.69
Running Press Shakespeare Box Set
Book SynopsisFor fans of the Bard is a deluxe box set of our three classic Shakespeare mini books: William Shakespeare: The Complete Plays in One Sitting, Shakespeare: The Bard''s Guide to Abuses and Affronts, and Love Sonnets of Shakespeare. With this collection, readers will have access to comprehensive summaries of each of Shakespeare''s 36 famous plays, the most eloquent of Shakespeare''s insults, and love sonnets to woo the most sought-after lover. The publication of this box set coincides with the BBC''s Shakespeare Project 2016, which celebrates the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare''s death.
£11.39
Pan Macmillan Christmas Poem 2025
Book SynopsisCarol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. She was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2019. Her many collections include Mean Time, Love Poems and The Bees, which won the Costa Poetry Award. Her writing for children includes Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, The Skipping-Rope Snake and The Tear Thief. She was made a DBE in the 2015 New Year Honours list. In 2021, she was awarded the international lifetime achievement award the Golden Wreath for her achievements in poetry.
£11.69
