Henry Carter Hull

Utopia (1516) is a work of political satire by Thomas More. Published in Latin while More was serving as Privy Counsellor under King Henry VIII, the text is stylized as a true account of a new civilization discovered in the New World by traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus. While there have been varying interpretations of Utopia over the centuries, it is most consistently regarded as a work of political philosophy in the tradition of Plato's Republic that...

Idylls of the King (1859-1885) is a cycle of narrative poems by British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Written while Tennyson was serving as Poet Laureate, Idylls of the King reworks the medieval Arthurian legend in blank verse and with an elegiac tone. Based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and the early British Mabinogion manuscripts, Tennyson's work connects an ancient tradition to the reign and ideals of Queen Victoria. "The Coming of Arthur"...

One of the twentieth century's most admired and influential authors, G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) created an enduring body of work that encompasses journalism, poetry, plays, history, biography, apologetics, and detective fiction. Chesterton's thought-provoking writings have profoundly affected countless readers, including C. S. Lewis, Michael Collins, and Mahatma Gandhi. This anthology features two unabridged works of fiction: Chesterton's thriller,...

"The celebrated Scottish poet brings together nearly 20 years of work in this anthology-- "a rare thing: a book of poems which sparkles" ( Scotsman , UK). Liz Lochhead has built an impressive reputation as poet, playwright and performer attracting a large and admiring public. She gained worldwide acclaim as the Scots Makar--or Scotland's National Poet--from 2011 to 2016, and before that served for six years as Poet Laureate of Glasgow. Dreaming...

In These Days of Prohibition is Caroline Bird's fifth Carcanet collection. As always, she is a poet of dark hilarity and telling social comment. Shifting between poetic and vulgar registers, the surreal imagery of her early work is re-deployed to venture into the badlands of the human psyche. Her poems hold their subjects in an unflinching grip, addressing faces behind the veneer, asking what it is that keeps us alive. These days of prohibition are...

"Growing up on the Isle of Lewis, Iain Crichton Smith spoke only Gaelic until he was five. But at school in Bayble and then Stornoway, everything had to be in English. Like many islanders before and since, his culture is divided: two languages, two histories entailing exile, a central theme of his poetry. His divided perspective sharply delineates the tyranny of history and religion, of the cramped life of small communities; it gives him a tender...

"A collection of poetry from "the patron saint of literary street urchins" ( The New York Times ). The Dead Queen of Bohemia is a journey through a life lived on the edge. With a poetic style influenced by Gertrude Stein and William Burroughs, this collection is woven with surrealistic imagery that is both unflinching and dislocating. Jenni Fagan's poetry is raw and tough yet beautiful and tender, and with themes of loss and recovery, hope and defiance,...

"Regarded by a contemporary as a "brilliant eccentric whose works skirted the outer fringes of English art and literature," William Blake (1757 -- 1827) is today recognized as a major poet and artist. This collection of 104 poems, carefully chosen by noted Blake scholars David and Virginia Erdman, reveals the lyricism, mystical vision, and consummate craftsmanship that have earned the poet his preeminent place with both critics and the general public....

Set Thy Love in Order: New & Selected Poems gathers the work of some thirty years, taken from Stephen Romer's four previous collections, along with a substantial selection of new poems. Stephen Romer has been described as 'one of our finest poets of thwarted or impossible love' (Adam Thorpe in the Guardian) and the title of this New & Selected is a Dantescan objurgation as old as the Trecento: Ordina qu'est amore, o tu che m'ami - set thy love in...

"The evils of greed and ambition overwhelm love, innocence, and the bonds of kinship in this dark tragedy, first presented circa 1613. John Webster's great Jacobean drama focuses on a secret marriage that strikes the disastrous spark to an inferno of violence. When the Duchess of Malfi marries Antonio, a household steward, her two fiendishly jealous brothers -- hoping to inherit her title and estates -- plant a household spy whose treachery leads...