Poetry Books

Book Synopsis The first ever collection of poems by the acclaimed author of the Aubrey/Maturin series of Napoleonic naval adventures. Trade Review'You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O’Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him' Irish Times ‘O’Brian’s narrative pace is always gripping: it shifts its speed and provides endlessly varying shocks and surprises – comic, grim, farcical and tragic.… The writing is as strong and delightfully various as the people and plots. And everything – skies and seas and ports and creatures – is vivid and sensuously present.’ A. S. Byatt, Evening Standard ‘O’Brian writes like a man to whom writing comes as easily as breathing: precisely, fluently, economically… perfect cadences’ Jane Schilling, Sunday Telegraph ‘A man of poetic sensibility with a plain-teller's instinct. At best, that resounds with authority in a late Yeatsian way’ George Szirtes

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Book SynopsisAn embrace of a book' Florence WelchPoetry was my place, my little clearing in the forest, where I could quietly put everything I was holding. I'm not sure what gave me the courage to open up that space to you, but here I am, doing it.'The Magic Border is the debut book from Mercury Prize-winning musician and poet Arlo Parks, combining never-before-seen poetry, song lyrics and beautiful, intimate images from collaborator, photographer Daniyel Lowden.Featuring twenty original poems, alongside an exclusive artist's statement and the complete lyrics from her sophomore album My Soft Machine, this vital collection explores the queer experience, blackness, grief, trauma and love through the eyes of the remarkable young musician.The Magic Border allows readers rare insight into her creative process and beautifully showcases the full breadth of Arlo's singular artistry.Arlo Parks pulls beauty around her as a war tactic, and she shares the spoils with us' Katie Gavin, MUNAThere's as much music Trade Review‘The most tender and tactile collection. Arlo Parks writes poetry you can taste … An embrace of a book’ Florence Welch ‘Arlo Parks pulls beauty around her as a war tactic, and she shares the spoils with us. I am grateful and invigorated’ Katie Gavin, MUNA ‘There’s as much music in Arlo’s poetry as there is poetry in her music. How nice to find her same reassuring warmth, eloquence, and softness in another medium as she finds new ways to capture the fierce love and noticing she has for life and the people she adores’ Lucy Dacus ‘Dream-like, song-like, Arlo Parks’ sumptuous poems pierce us with their directness of emotion, keen images, and seductive rhythms. As rich and sharp as photographs, The Magic Border is sexy and startling; these songs penetrate the heart’ Richie Hofmann, author of A Hundred Lovers ‘Wonderful, full of intoxicating beauty and tenderness. This is a collection to savour’ Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch

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Book SynopsisBorn in London in 1939, Alan Ayckbourn is one of the world's most popular and prolific playwrights. He has written 74 full length plays and more than 20 other revues and plays for children. He is also an acclaimed director. Alan Ayckbourn was awarded a CBE in 1987. Ten years later to the day, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II 'for services to the theatre.'

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Book SynopsisFrom the quiet beauty of 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' to the apocalyptic resonance of 'The Second Coming', this collection shows the impact of a great poet whose startling relevance to our own times grows more and more evident.Trade ReviewMy favourite poet is Yeats, who in my book is the greatest since Shakespeare -- Michael LongleyHis verse is inspired;his poetic persona is magnificent... He created a poetry both lyrical and demotic, melodic and rhetorical -- Peter Ackroyd * The Times *

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Book SynopsisTwenty-three poems that transformed English poetry Wordsworth and Coleridge composed this powerful selection of poetry during their youthful and intimate friendship. Reproducing the first edition of 1798, this edition of Lyrical Ballads allows modern readers to recapture the book’s original impact. In these poems—including Wordsworth’s “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”—the two poets exercised new energies and opened up new themes.

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Book SynopsisAfter the restoration of King Charles II to the British throne in 1660, dramatists experienced new freedom in an age that broke from the strict morality of puritan rule and in which elegance and wit became the chief virtues. Irreverent, licentious and cynical, the three plays collected here hold up a mirror to this dazzling era and satirize the gulf between appearances and reality. In Etherege''s The Man of Mode (1676), the womanizing Dorimant meets his match when he falls in love with the unpretentious Harriet, while Wycherley''s The Country Wife (c. 1675) depicts the rakish Horner who fakes impotence to fool trusting husbands into giving him easy access to their wives. And in Congreve''s Love for Love (1695), the extravagant Valentine can only win his beloved Angelica if he loses his inheritance.

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Book SynopsisThe Romanticism that emerged after the American and French revolutions of 1776 and 1789 represented a new flowering of the imagination and the spirit, and a celebration of the soul of humanity with its capacity for love. This extraordinary collection sets the acknowledged genius of poems such as Blake''s ''Tyger'', Coleridge''s ''Khubla Khan'' and Shelley''s ''Ozymandias'' alongside verse from less familiar figures and women poets such as Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson. We also see familiar poets in an unaccustomed light, as Blake, Wordsworth and Shelley demonstrate their comic skills, while Coleridge, Keats and Clare explore the Gothic and surreal.

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Book SynopsisExclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of Shaw’s telling indictment of the generation responsible for World War I—part of the official Bernard Shaw LibraryA Penguin Classic   When Ellie Dunn joins a house party at the home of the eccentric Captain Shotover, she causes a stir with her decision to marry for money rather than love, and the Captain’s forthright daughter Hesione protests vigorously against the pragmatic young woman’s choice. Opinion on the matter quickly divides and a lively argument about money and morality, idealism and realism ensues as Hesione’s rakish husband, snobbish sister, and Ellie’s fiancé—a wealthy industrialist—enter the debate.    Heartbreak House was written between 1916 and 1917, as war raged across Europe. With its bold combination of high farce and bitter tragedy, it remains an uncannily prophetic depiction of a society on the threshold oTrade 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

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Book SynopsisThe third volume of Dante's Divine ComedyTo the consternation of his more academic admirers, who believed Latin to be the only proper language for dignified verse, Dante wrote his Comedy in colloquial Italian, wanting it to be a poem for the common reader. Taking two threads of a story that everybody knew and loved – the story of a vision of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and the story of the lover who has to brave the Underworld to find his lost lady – he combined them into a great allegory of the soul’s search for God. He made it swift, exciting and topical, lavishing upon it all his learning and wit, all his tenderness, humour and enthusiasm, and all his poetry. In Paradise, Dante journeys through the encircling spheres of heaven towards God. 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 Trade Review“The English Dante of choice.” –Hugh Kenner“Exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths.” –Robert Fagles, Princeton University“A marvel of fidelity to the original, of sobriety, and truly, of inspired poetry.” –Henri Peyre, Yale University

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Book SynopsisInsolent and defiant, the Chants de Maldoror, by the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont (1846-70), depicts a sinister and sadistic world of unrestrained savagery and brutality. One of the earliest and most astonishing examples of surrealist writing, it follows the experiences of Maldoror, a master of disguises pursued by the police as the incarnation of evil, as he makes his way through a nightmarish realm of angels and gravediggers, hermaphrodites and prostitutes, lunatics and strange children. Delirious, erotic, blasphemous and grandiose by turns, this hallucinatory novel captured the imagination of artists and writers as diverse as Modigliani, Verlaine, André Gide and André Breton; it was hailed by the twentieth-century Surrealist movement as a formative and revelatory masterpiece.Table of ContentsMaldoror and PoemsIntroduction to MaldororMaldororIntroduction to PoemsPoems

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Book SynopsisThe second volume in Dante''s Divine Comedy Beginning with Dante''s liberation from Hell, Purgatory relates his ascent, accompanied by Virgil, of the Mount of Purgatory - a mountain of nine levels, formed from rock forced upwards when God threw Satan into depths of the earth. As he travels through the first seven levels, Dante observes the sinners who are waiting for their release into Paradise, and through these encounters he is himself transformed into a stronger and better man. For it is only when he has learned from each of these levels that he can ascend to the gateway to Heaven: the Garden of Eden. The second part of one of the greatest epic poems, Purgatory is an enthralling Christian allegory of sin, redemption and ultimate enlightenment.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 woTrade Review“The English Dante of choice.” –Hugh Kenner“Exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths.” –Robert Fagles, Princeton University“A marvel of fidelity to the original, of sobriety, and truly, of inspired poetry.” –Henri Peyre, Yale University

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Book SynopsisWords of joy, love, devotion and celebrationDeciding how to express your feelings on one of the most important days of your or your loved one''s life can be overwhelming.Poems and Readings for Weddings collects the very best readings by world-renowned poets, bards, playwrights and novelists who have written passionately, thoughtfully and deeply over hundreds of years about love, marriage and commitment.This beautiful collection contains an astonishing range of poems, prose extracts, prayers and songs, all chosen to enhance the occasion, whether they be moving, witty, irreverent, thoughtful or heartfelt.Above all, these words will be recognized as timeless and true.

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Book SynopsisJohn Updike was born in 1932 in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He is the author of over fifty books, including The Poorhouse Fair; the Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest); Marry Me; The Witches of Eastwick, which was made into a major feature film; Memories of the Ford Administration; Brazil; In the Beauty of the Lilies; Toward the End of Time; Gertrude and Claudius; and Seek My Face. He has written a number of collections of short stories, including The Afterlife and Other Stories and Licks of Love, which includes a final Rabbit story, Rabbit Remembered. His essays and criticism first appeared in publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, and are now collected into numerous volumes. Collected Poems 1953-1993 brings together almost all of his verse, and a new edition of his Selected Poems is forthcoming fr

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Book SynopsisThe work of 21 poets is represented: including Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves, Ivor Gurney, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Mew, Alice Meynell, Wilfred Owen, Herbert Read, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Edward Thomas.

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Book SynopsisIn these three exotic, steamy dramas Tennessee Williams portrays loss, faded lives and passionate love affairs.The Rose Tattoo is set in a bustling, Sicilian-American community, where newly widowed Serafina is paralysed by grief, until she has her romantic illusions about her dead husband shattered and rediscovers her true nature as a fiery prima donna, in a life-affirming celebration of love and sex. Tennessee Williams explores a new ''wild and unrestricted'' theatrical form in the colourful tropical fantasy Camino Real, while Orpheus Descending, however, takes us into the dark territory of the Deep South: the corrupt hell of a small, brutal township, where a forbidden and tragic love affair sparks horrific violence.

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Book SynopsisLoneliness, sexual tension and the need for human kindness pervade these three plays by Tennessee Williams, as their characters rage against personal demons and the modern world. In ''Sweet Bird of Youth'', a drifter, Chance Wayne, returns to his home town with an ageing movie actress in search of the girl he loved in his youth, but with terrible, violent results. ''Period of Adjustment'' tells the story of two young newlyweds who visit the husband''s old army friend on Christmas Eve after unsuccessfully consummating their marriage, and unleash forbidden passion, while in ''The Night of the Iguana'' a diverse group of people, including a disturbed ex-minister and a troubled spinster, are thrown together in an isolated Mexican hotel for one eventful night.

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Book SynopsisIntroduced and selected by the poet-presenter Owen Sheers, A Poet''s Guide to Britain is a major poetry anthology in its own right.Owen Sheers passionately believes that poems, and particularly poems of place, not only affect us as individuals, but can have the power to mark and define a collective experience - our identities, our country, and our land. Under the headings of six varieties of British landscape - London and Cities, Villages and Towns, Mountains and Moorland, Islands, Woods and Forest, and Coast and Sea - he has collected poems that evoke qualities of the land, city and sea and have become part of the way we see these landscapes. The anthology follows a similar format to the BBC series, while also supplementing the poems included in the programme with his own personal favourites.

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Book Synopsis''The most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world'' Percy Bysshe ShelleyShakespeare''s bleak and brutal tragedy begins when an ageing king, seeking a successor, rejects the young daughter who loves him and misplaces his trust in her malevolent sisters. In return they strip him of his power and condemn him to a wretched wasteland of horror and insanity. Set in a pitiless universe, King Lear is a towering, elemental masterpiece of fierce poetry and vast imaginative scope.Used and Recommended by the National TheatreGeneral Editor Stanley WellsEdited by George HunterIntroduction by Kiernan Ryan

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Book Synopsis''The work of Shakespeare is virtually infinite'' Jorge Luis BorgesA jealous king, convinced that his wife has been unfaithful and is having another man''s baby, imprisons her and puts her on trial. The child is abandoned to die, but when she is found and raised by a shepherd, it seems redemption may be possible. A bravura blend of tragedy, comedy and romance, Shakespeare''s emotionally potent late play explores artifice and nature, mortality and renewal, and the destructive and consoling effects of time.Used and Recommended by the National TheatreGeneral Editor Stanley Wells Edited by Ernest Schanzer Introduction by Russ McDonald

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Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare''s comic encore for one of his best-loved characters - the rascally Falstaff from Henry IV and Henry V - The Merry Wives of Windsor is edited by G.R. Hibbard with an introduction by Catherine Richardson in Penguin Shakespeare.''We''ll leave a proof, by that which we will do,Wives may be merry, and yet honest too''In need of money, the fat and foolish Falstaff devises a scheme to seduce two married women and steal their husbands'' wealth. By talking to each other, however, the wives soon discover his plan and begin to plot their own revenge. Relentlessly inventive, this comic humiliation of a foolish would-be seducer is a lively, compelling and ultimately joyous celebration of the all-conquering power of laughter.This book contains a general introduction to Shakespeare''s life and Elizabethan theatre, a separate introduction to The Merry Wives of Windsor, a chronology, suggestions for further reading, an essaTrade ReviewPraise for William Shakespeare: Complete Works“Remarkable . . . makes Shakespeare’s extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever.”—James Shapiro, professor, Columbia University, bestselling author of A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599 “A feast of literary and historical information.”—The Wall Street Journal

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Book Synopsis''Tonight he noticed how the women''s eyesPassed from him to the strong men that were whole.''The true horror of the trenches is brought to life in this selection of poetry from the front line.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin''s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). Owen is available in Penguin Classics in Three Poets of the First World War: Ivor Gurney, Isaac Rosenberg, Wilfred Owen.

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Book SynopsisRainy night on Union Square, full moon. Want more poems? Wait till I''m dead.Allen Ginsberg, August 8, 1990, 3:30 A.M.Allen Ginsberg wrote incessantly for more than fifty years, and many of the poems collected for the first time in this volume were scribbled in letters or sent off to obscure publications and unjustly forgotten. Containing more than a hundred previously unpublished poems, accompanied by original photographs, and spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s, Wait Till I''m Dead is the final major contribution to Ginsberg''s sprawling oeuvre, a must have for Ginsberg neophytes and long-time fans alike.

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Book SynopsisDeadpan, epic, and searingly charismatic, A Sand Book is at once relatable and out-of-this-world. In poems tracking climate change, bystanderism, state murder, sexual trauma, shopping, ghosting, love, and the transcendent shock of prophecy, A Sand Book chronicles new dimensions of consciousness for our strange and desperate times.What does the destruction of our soil have to do with the weather in the human soul? From sand in the gizzards of birds to the iridescence on the surface of spilt oil, from sand storms on Mars to our internet-addicted present, from the desertifying mountains of Haiti to natural disasters and state violence, A Sand Book is both a travelogue and a book of mourning.

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Book SynopsisA SUNDAY TELEGRAPH AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF SWEDEN''S AUGUST PRIZEWINNER OF THE WARWICK PRIZE FOR WOMEN IN TRANSLATIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE''Osebol is a magnificent success; it is hard to imagine it better ... Kapla is a magician ... mesmerizing'' Sara Wheeler, TLS''A simple, pared-back and down-to-earth masterpiece'' James Rebanks''We listen to them like something caught on the wind ... so moving and so strangely beckoning'' Nicci Gerrard, Observer''[Among] the year''s most pleasing books'' Rishi Dastidar, Guardian, Books of the Year''Engrossing and humbling and quietly revelatory'' Max Porter''Fascinating ... I was riveted'' Lydia Davis''Like standing outside an open window on a warm summer evening and listening to a piece of contemporary history'' LänstidningenTrade ReviewIt is an unlikely subject for a bestseller. Yet in Sweden, the voices that have come from this ordinary little village have become like an existential meditation on what it is to be alive, to be human, creatures living in time while the river runs on and wolves howl in the woods ... Its specificity allows it to be universal. ... Garrulous, taciturn, gossipy, warm-hearted, reserved or matter-of-fact, a character speaks and then they slip quietly away ... we listen to them like something caught on the wind ... Why is this so moving and so strangely beckoning? I think precisely because Osebol bears witness to ordinary lives. It gives us, unmediated, the voices of people who are usually unheard and invites us to pay attention to small things. It's also a book ... about the many meanings of home ... what it is to put down roots and belong ... Compelling -- Nicci Gerrard * Observer *Transporting ... It is particular in its focus on one place ... and universal in its reminders that nothing stays the same. You feel as though you're in among them -- Michael Kerr * Sunday Telegraph (Books of the Year) *The year's most pleasing books have been those that delivered the most unexpected delights. Marit Kapla's Osebol (Allen Lane) renders the oral history of a small Swedish village since 1945 into verse. A variety of voices form a symphonic whole ruminating on seasons passing, people leaving and a way of life almost disappearing -- Rishi Dastidar * Guardian (Books of the Year) *A fugue in many voices ... Osebol comes to life as the book progresses, like a dusty mosaic splashed with water ... [In] sudden shifts of tone, the book catches the rhythm of life itself ... Osebol is a magnificent success; it is hard to imagine it better, or even different - it exists on its own terms. Kapla is a magician. How can she be called 'the author' when not a word is hers? But it was she who crafted it, weighing themes and balancing light and shade ... The translator Peter Graves has miraculously maintained the original rhythm - or perhaps he has smelted Swedish phrases into English and forged a new one ... The book conjures the Welsh notion of hiraeth, that soul-deep longing for the landscape of home ... mesmerizing ... Osebol is a song of the ages -- Sara Wheeler * TLS *Engrossing and humbling and quietly revelatory -- Max PorterOsebol is a kind of simple, pared-back and down-to-earth masterpiece. I suspect that centuries from now it will be read and loved for the glimpse it gives into the lives of "ordinary" people in this moment in time. There aren't many books I am jealous of, and wish I had written ... but I really wish I had written this. I hope a lot of people read it and understand just how brilliant it is -- James Rebanks, author of English PastoralOsebol is a fascinating and revealing immersion in another culture and landscape. I was riveted by these life stories of young and old, especially the accounts of those who remember how things used to be - of picking berries in the forest and sharing the potato harvest. A wonderful read -- Lydia Davis, author of Essays and Essays TwoThey speak of the forest, the bridge, the church, the river and the road, as if drawing a map ... In 2016 and 2017, Kapla, who grew up in Osebol, interviewed almost every adult in the village, ranging in age from 18 to 92 ... [she] takes a poet's approach, attending to the rhythms of thought and breaking the natural phrase as if breaking a surface. Her translator, Peter Graves, more than rises to the challenge this presents. He has found a register in English - both offhand and choral - that brings the voices together without letting them merge ... these eight hundred sparse pages offer as much as a 19th-century novel: a looming past and destabilised present, sweethearts and lonely hearts, casualties and entrepreneurs, grand plans, quiet satisfactions, and a fair amount of settling and enduring ... Each memory sits within the rest and moves us towards the speaker's core -- Lavinia Greenlaw * London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best CollectionA Financial Times, Irish Times and Telegraph Book of the Year history is what we call / what might have happened differently / and didn''tIt is the decade of centuries, and Cheryl tells us our fortune. Radicals liberate a zoo, teenagers flirt in a bowling alley, and the dead are cherished. In these inventive, playful, dream-like poems, Stephen Sexton takes us on a journey through the past and the present, while Cheryl translates from the future, showing us how we exist in all three at once.Reckoning with both public and private tragedies, the book is divided into three parts. In Part One, the poems range across old Europe: ''Edelweiss'' and Titanic setting sail, to a transatlantic, cross-century symposium in Part Two, where two giants perfect their arts in collaboration. In Part Three we are back in the land where the past keeps breaking through, it''s practically always the Trade ReviewWith poetry for me it's an either/or. Either I can barely read the stuff - which happens most of the time - or it leaves me delirious with the thrill of possibility. Stephen Sexton makes anything seem possible: the simplest things and the most mysterious - which, of course, are one and the same. -- Geoff Dyer'While reading "Cheryl's Destinies," every so often I encountered a poem that struck me as a poem people would be reading a hundred years from now. I felt the way I felt the first time I read "Death of a Naturalist," though, of course, Heaney was already Heaney by the time I read that book. Then again, Stephen Sexton is already Stephen Sexton-these poems glow with a welcoming confidence and with a particularness that is local everywhere, and are full of surprising moments that immediately become part of how one understands the world. Cheryl's Destinies is a course of miracles. -- Shane McCraeIn Cheryl's Destinies, Stephen Sexton throws time into a dance with itself. Surreal and prismatic, weird and shape-shifting, these poems are missives from a rare and rapturous imagination. -- Seán HewittStephen Sexton is a fabulous poet: gifted with a delicate ear, a humane and generous sensibility, and attentive to both the absurdities and the wonders of modern life. It's a joy to read these unexpected and thrilling poems. -- Nick LairdCheryl's Destinies illuminates with a chorus of the dead, the living and the yet to be discovered. Cheryl, who is really into the tarot, is here to foresee, but this collection also excavates. Poems 'mosey through the graveyards of the world' where the dead speak to us and with us. Séance loving Yeats collaborates with Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan (as you do), while Ciarán Carson is remembered with vibrancy as the young poet recounts Carson's influence in Belfast and beyond. Sexton is as imaginative as he is controlled, spinning an enduring and trancey tapestry. At once playful and dystopic, hilarious and original - you won't have read poetry like this. He is a rare talent. -- Elaine FeeneyHis pen is fantastical. Cheryl (of the title), tarot card clairvoyant, is conjured out of thin air. She flourishes alongside many other sleights of hand and vanishing acts: there is no knot Sexton cannot slip... many of his phrases are so good I wanted to steal them...Sexton makes the world bearable with poetry as his intercessor. -- Kate Kellaway * The Observer *Brimful multiplicity... grief-fuelled odysseys, time melting forwards and backwards as Cheryl's tarot evokes Madame Sosostris * Irish Times *Stephen Sexton writes with such ease and lightness of touch that you're too charmed to check where he's leading you, until you look down and notice, Bugs Bunny-like, that you've walked off a cliff... Sexton writes like a lover of life. His "deliberate happiness" often manifests as a kind of defiant whimsy. He's not, in the end, flinching away from what he can't face, but transforming it with warmth and humour into something luminously strange... He's not whistling through the graveyard to hide his fear, but out of unfeigned joy. Long may he dabble and mosey. -- Tristram Fane Saunders * The Telegraph *A witty, compassionate act of time travel * Financial Times Books of the Year *Fleet-footed and irrepressibly charming * The Telegraph Books of the Year *Opens dazzling windows of wonder into multiple worlds. The patterns in Cheryl's tarot cards reflect time-bending truths about art and history * The Irish Times *The garden of Cheryl's Destinies is wild, Rousseau-lush, magic-hour lit ... Sexton's flair comes in balancing the otherworldly with the very ordinary, acutely observed detail ... joyous and often very, very funny -- Genevieve Stevens * Poetry Review *The spring-loaded poems of Cheryl's Destinies foreground questions about art and authenticity, belief and make-believe, the inescapable presence of history and the contingent self in crisis ... many of the poems in Cheryl's Destinies vibrate not only forwards but backwards as Sexton continues to unlock the possibilities of poetic form. -- Maria Johnston * The Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis''Times and their reasons, arranged in order through the Latin year, and constellations sunk beneath the earth and risen, I shall sing.''Ovid''s poetical calendar of the Roman year is both a day by day account of festivals and observances and their origins, and a delightful retelling of myths and legends associated with particular dates. Written in the late years of the emperor Augustus, and cut short when the emperor sent the poet into exile, the poem''s tone ranges from tragedy to farce, and its subject matter from astronomy and obscure ritual to Roman history and Greek mythology. Among the stories Ovid tells at length are those of Arion and the dolphin, the rape of Lucretia, the shield that fell from heaven, the adventures of Dido''s sister, the Great Mother''s journey to Rome, the killing of Remus, the bloodsucking birds, and the murderous daughter of King Servius. The poem also relates a wealth of customs and beliefs, such as the unluckiness of marrying in May.This new prose transTrade ReviewReview from previous edition 'a thorough and meticulous work, distinguished by accuracy and fidelity to the Latin, and it will surely suit the serious Latinless reader who desires a reliable guide to this challenging and remarkable poem' * Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2012.04.36 *

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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.- A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings- Wide-ranging introduction explores the lyrical language with which Shakespeare dramatizes competing kinds of love- Detailed performance history designed to meet the needs of theatre professionals- On-page commentary and notes explain language, word-play, and staging- the only edition to provide a setting of the song ''Who is Silvia?'' , taken from an Elizabethan source- 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'' ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each afforTrade ReviewRoger Warren's edition of the play in the excellent Oxford series is emphatically performance-orientated throughout. * Ruth Morse, Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisThe Second World War is now recognized as a watershed for British poetry. The changes that arose were masked for some time by the enormous power and shock of the conflict itself, and by the restrictions on poetry publishing consequent on paper rationing and the general business of wartime. This anthology seeks to showcase not only the harrowingly beautiful poetry born from the conflict, but also the radical changes to style and form that came from the epoch and altered the face of British poetry. Featuring generous selections of famous poets, including Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden, alongside works by civilians and soldiers, the collection offers a symphony of different voices, all connected in their shared experience of the Second World War. Tim Kendall''s introduction charts the history of the war poets'' reception, explaining their relationship with their First World War predecessors and some of the reasons why they have never managed to reach such a wide audience. The work of each poet is prefaced with a biographical account which allows poems to be read in their historical context, and every poem is annotated with date of composition, publication history, and a gloss of words and allusions.

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Book SynopsisThe Alexandra, attributed to Lykophron is a minor poetic masterpiece. At 1474 lines, it is one of the most important and notoriously difficult Greek poems dating from the Hellenistic period.Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Note on the text and translation Select Bibliography Timeline Synopsis of the Poem Introduction THE ALEXANDRA OF LYKOPHRON Explanatory notes Index

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Book Synopsis''Men''s evil manners live in brass, their virtuesWe write in water.''Henry VIII or All is True is Shakespeare''s retelling of one of the defining periods in English history: the marriage and divorce of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. Written in the wake of the sudden death of Henry Stuart, King James I and VI''s oldest son and heir, Shakespeare''s most ''contemporary'' history play offers provocative parallels between the Tudor past and Stuart present. The play examines the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cranmer, and Anne Boleyn, providing both a meditation on history as a narrative dictated by Church and State, and on the tragic lives of those who become collateral damage to greater forces.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.

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Book SynopsisThis selection, chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition, includes Wordsworth's finest verse, and a large sample of The Prelude, his extraordinary autobiographical poem in blank verse and the first truly great achievement of a new era in English poetry.Trade Reviewremarkable value ... introduction, notes and all * Oxford Times *

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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- A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings- On-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, language, and allusions- Detailed introduction provides a full account of the play''s performance history and explores issues of gender, gift-theory, and ecology- Appendices include source materials and a chronology of major productions worldwide- 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 volTrade Review...highly recommended * Dieter Mehl, Archiv *

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Book SynopsisThis authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Coleridge's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by important criticism, letters, and marginalia - to give the essence of his work and thinking.Table of Contents* INTRODUCTION * TEXTUAL NOTE * BIBLIOGRAPHY * CHRONOLOGY * EXPLANATORY NOTES *INDEX

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Book SynopsisThis authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Milton''s poetry and prose - all the English verse together with a generous selection from the major prose writings - to give the essence of his work and thinking.Milton''s influence on English poetry and criticism has been incalculable, and this edition covers the full range of his poetic and political output. It includes Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes as well as major prose works such as Areopagitica and The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. As well as all the English and Italian verse, the volume includes most of the Latin and Greek verse in parallel translation. Spelling has been modernized, and the poems are arranged in order of publication, essential to an understanding of the progress of Milton''s career in relation to the political and religious upheavals of his time. The extensive notes cover syntax, vocabulary, historical context, and biblical and classical allusions. The introduction traces both Milton''s changing conception of his own vocation, and the critical reception his work has received over the past four centuries. 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 ReviewA good edition with comprehensive notes and an introduction that is both informative and engaging. / Dr. Ema Vyroubalova, Trinity College Dublin

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Book SynopsisAphra Behn (1640-89) was both successful and controversial in her own lifetime; her achievements are now recognized less equivocally and her plays, often revived, demonstrate wit, compassion and remarkable range. This edition brings together her most important comedies in a single volume: The Rover, her best-known play; The Feigned Courtesans, a lively comedy of intrigue; The Lucky Chance, a comedy with a bitter edge, which takes a satirical look at marriage customs; and the dazzling and popular farce, The Emperor of the Moon. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University of York, the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. Detailed annotation helps the reader to visualize the plays in performance and the Introduction argues for the importance of Behn''s skilful stagecraft and her great success as an entertainer. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of litTable of ContentsThe Rover ; The Feigned Courtesans ; The Lucky Chance ; The Emperor of the Moon

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Book SynopsisThis unique anthology includes generous selections from the six nineteenth-century French poets most often read in the English-speaking world today: Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. Modern translations are printed opposite the original French verse, and the edition also contains over a thousand lines of poetry never previously translated into English.Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION; CHRONOLOGIES; TEXTUAL NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; EXPLANATORY NOTES; INDEX

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Book Synopsis''Her mouth was like the bloom of a rose, when the rose begins to part the lips of its petals. As soon as I saw, I was done for...All my dreams were of Leucippe.''Achilles Tatius'' Leucippe and Clitophon is the most bizarre and risqué of the five ''Greek novels'' of idealized love between boy and girl that survive from the period of the Roman empire. Stretching the capacity of the genre to its limits, Achilles'' narrative covers adultery, violence, evisceration, pederasty, virginity-testing, and (of course) an improbable happy ending. Ingenious and sophisticated in conception, Leucippe and Clitophon is in execution at once subtle, stylish, moving, brash, tasteless, and obscene. This new translation aims to capture Achilles'' writing in all its exuberant variety. 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.

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Book Synopsis''I thought you''d do what the common run of slaves normally do, cheating and tricking me because my son''s having an affair.''Terence''s comedies have provided plots and characters for comic drama from classical times to the present; the outstanding comic playwright of his generation at Rome, he has influenced authors from Molière and Wycherley to P. G. Wodehouse. Scheming slaves, parasites, prostitutes, pimps, and boastful soldiers populate his plays, which show love triumphing over obstacles of various kinds, and the problems that arise from ignorance, misunderstanding, and prejudice. Although they reflect contemporary tensions in Roman society, their insights into human nature and experience make them timeless in their appeal. Peter Brown''s lively new translation does full justice to Terence''s style and skill as a dramatist. 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.Table of ContentsThe Girl from Andros ; The Mother-in-Law ; The Self-Tormentor ; The Eunuch ; Phormio ; The Brothers

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Book SynopsisTibullus was one of the great Roman elegists, alongside Ovid and Propertius. His poems of love, addressed to his mistresses Delia and Nemesis and the boy Marathus portray idealism, anguish, and betrayal, newly translated into stylish English by A. M. Juster, with parallel Latin text, introduction, and notes by Tibullus scholar Robert Maltby.Trade ReviewJuster's translation reproduces Tibullus's verses in simple yet polished language, and it contains many creative and appealing turns of phrase. * The Classical Journal, Robert J. Ball *A.M Juster's verse translation is clear and helpful ... an excellent introduction and notes * Translation and Literature *It is difficult to believe that they could possibly be better rendered into contemporary English. * Gilbert Wesley Purdy, Eclectica *

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Book SynopsisIn this intimate, confiding poetry collection, McGuinness shows how identity is layered, permeable, always in motion - how we are always actor and audience to ourselves''This is McGuinness''s best collection by far, and stands out from the crowd''SUNDAY TIMESIn Blood Feather, a book of doubling and displacement, we see time in a new way: the past, personal and collective, lingering as an ever-present ghost - while lost beyond recall.The first section, ''Squeeze the Day'' - a series of deeply moving poems about the author''s mother, displaced between languages - investigates her illness and death; how being bilingual is like having a double, a second self; how each self haunts the other. ''The Noises Things Make When They Leave'' elegises today''s post-industrial landscapes, their people and professions: sidelined by literature, bypassed by globalisation. The final sequence, ''After the Flood'', links the book''s themes, seeking a way of seeiTrade ReviewThis is McGuinness's best collection by far, and stands out from the crowd * Sunday Times *An eloquent fusion of the delicate and the direct * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2023* *McGuinness has a delightfully distinctive voice… His buoyant imagination always carries the day… He can be breathtakingly simple, and to have written one poem as good as 'Tired Metaphor' is enough for any writer in any year * Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year* *Arresting... Reminds us that the best poetry is often that which never makes it from the notebook * Guardian *Patrick McGuinness writes of the other country of childhood with Proustian élan and Nabokovian delight -- John Banville, author of The SeaA deeply moving book of poems... Shimmering with the "sweet dark syrup" of humour, and gorgeous sleights of imagery, these are poems of extraordinary grace; they come up for air with their cupped hands empty, yet brimming with light -- Fiona Benson, author of EphemeronAn extraordinary writer of great compassion -- Denise Mina, author of The Field of BloodThe brilliance of Patrick McGuinness's writing has made his memories unforgettable to the reader -- Adam Foulds, author of The Quickening MazeBrilliant... A book alive with understated yearning * Literary Review *

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