Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare Thee to a Summer's Day?)


William Shakespeare - 2011
    "Sonnet 18" is one of the best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.

The Flea


John Donne - 1977
    

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love


Christopher Marlowe - 2012
    

The Rape of the Lock


Alexander Pope - 1717
    A satirical poem that intentionally over-dramatizes an incident in which a lock of a woman's hair is cut without her permission.

The Lady of Shalott


Alfred Tennyson - 1833
    Tennyson's beautiful and enigmatic poem of unrequited love, set in Arthurian England, has enthralled artists for well over a century. With her luminous illustrations, Genevi?ve C?t? weaves a refreshingly modern interpretation of this beloved poem -- one that will enchant readers of all ages.' to 'This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience


William Blake - 1794
    It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.

Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream


Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1816
    According to Coleridge's Preface to Kubla Khan, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the summer palace of the Mongol ruler and Emperor of China Kublai Khan. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems


T.S. Eliot - 1915
    Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.

Dulce et Decorum Est


Wilfred Owen - 1917
    Owen's poem is known for its horrific imagery and condemnation of war. It was drafted at Craiglockhart in the first half of October 1917 and later revised, probably at Scarborough but possibly Ripon, between January and March 1918.

Ozymandias


Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1817
    The poem, Ozymandias, was composed in 1817. It is one of the most famous poems of P.B. Shelley. It was composed in competition with Shelley's friend, Horace Smith who wrote another sonnet on the same topic named Ozymandias. The theme of this sonnet is the decline of all leaders of all the empires they built. However mighty they have been in their time, history has destroyed them. Ozymandias was another name for Ramesses, a great Pharaoh king of ancient Egypt.

The Riverside Chaucer


Geoffrey Chaucer - 1986
    The most authentic edition of Chaucer's Complete Works available.- The fruit of years of scholarship by an international team of experts- A new foreword by Christopher Cannon introduces students to recent developments in Chaucer Studies- A detailed introduction covers Chaucer's life, works, language, and verse- Includes on-the-page glosses, explanatory notes, textual notes, bibliography, and a glossary

An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard


Thomas Gray - 1751
    THIS 6 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Master Thoughts of Master Minds in Poem, Prose and Pencil, by Thomas Gray.

The Duchess of Malfi


John Webster - 1614
    An entirely new introduction sets the tragedy in the context of pre-Civil War England and gives a revealing view of its imagery and dramatic action.From its well-documented early performances to the two productions seen in the West End of London in the 1995-96 season, a stage history gives an account of the play in performance. Students, actors, directors and theatre-goers will all find here a reappraisal of Webster's artistry in the greatest age of English theatre, which highlights why it has lived on stage with renewed force in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Lyrical Ballads


William Wordsworth - 1798
    They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure - William Wordsworth, from the Advertisment prefacing the original 1798 edition. When it was first published, Lyrical Ballads enraged the critics of the day: Wordsworth and Coleridge had given poetry a voice, one decidedly different to what had been voiced before. For Wordsworth, as he so clearly stated in his celebrated preface to the 1800 edition (also reproduced here), the important thing was the emotion aroused by the poem, and not the poem itself. This acclaimed Routledge Classics edition offers the reader the opportunity to study the poems in their original contexts as they appeared to Coleridge's and Wordsworth's contemporaries, and includes some of their most famous poems, including Coleridge's Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.

Kew Gardens


Virginia Woolf - 1919
    The book's jacket design and page illustrations were by her sister, artist Vanessa Bell. More than sixty years later, The Hogarth Press at Chatto & Windus has published a lovely facsimile of that prized edition of 'Kew Gardens'. The lush and haunting story circles around Kew Gardens one hot day in July, as various odd and interesting couples walk by and talk, exchanging words but letting thoughts and memories float languorously above the glossy leaves and exotic blooms, while at their feet, a determined snail makes its way slowly across a mountainous flower bed. Elegantly produced, a precise replica of that 1927 special edition, with Vanessa Bell's jacket and decorative drawings, this is a rare treat for Bloomsbury devotees and all who love beautiful books.