Immortal Poems of the English Language

I grew up with this volume. My parents owned a 1960 edition, purchased that year, the year before I was born. It was the first book of poetry I ever studied. In fact, the first poem I read in it was Dylan Thomas' "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London," a poem that I found chilling and entrancing, although my nine-year-old brain could make little sense of it. I carried that book with me throughout college and my early career in publishing. By 2000, when I finally retired it, the book's pages were brown with age and so brittle that they chipped away at the edges every time I handled it. The binding glue had long since dried out thoroughly, and the pages came out in handfuls. The whole thing was held together with a rubber band. It was a tremendous sight -- a book that had been so well read, so used, so valued and loved that it was disintegrating under my very touch.I put it away and forgot about it until a month ago, then came to Amazon and purchased this latest printing. It was wonderful to rediscover some old favorites again: Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," Edwin Arlington Robinson's "The Dark Hills," and countless others.Unfortunately, within just three weeks, the binding began to fall apart. First a few pages came loose, and then an entire chunk, from roughly page 369 to page 458, broke away clean from the binding. It took just three weeks for the book to look about as bad as my vintage copy from 1960. This volume deserves better. It would be wonderful to see it in hardcover, though I don't believe it has ever been in its 60-year history. Luckily, I found an old library edition that had been converted to hardcover, and it looks like it will wear well.

Bought this as a gift for my husband, who loves poetry. I read reviews, before ordering it, that commented about the low quality of the print in this edition, but I went ahead and bought it because this is the only edition available, other than buying a much earlier edition from a used book site. He was happy with the book, and said he could read the sometimes dark and somewhat blurry print OK. So, he kept it. I don't know why the print is so bad, but.....if you can overlook that, this is a wonderful collection of poetry. There have been other comments about the book coming apart too quickly, so I'll have to wait and see if that happens to this one.

Review for the new reprint. Its very nice to have this in a better than mass market paperback. I would very much like to have it in a high quality hardback; sewn not glued.

If you love good poetry, you will love this book. It covers a wide range of timeless poetry. I have found numerous poems in this book that are worth memorizing. Only one little critique, it is clear Oscar does not enjoy the poetry of Longfellow. I do. He is not at all well-represented in this book. But so many other great poets are. Such as Shakespeare, Thomas, Burns, Swinburne, etc. Another great thing I just love about this anthology is that it is in chronological order. From the early poets to the most contemporary.

I just bought a new copy of this book because I wore out the old one. Every major poet is represented here, and just as importantly, we meet a lot of great poets who most of us have never heard of. I have made a lot of joyous discoveries in this collection. Coleridge, for example, was only a name to me before I opened this volume and read "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." It was also here that I discovered Chaucer - now what would life be without Chaucer? I don't have much education, but whoever reads this book through has the equivalent of a Lit degree.

There is a school of thought in literary criticism (called "reader response") that the reader should not ingest preconceptions about a literary work through others' critiques and interpretations, or any particular editor's perspectives on authorial intent or historical context before reading a work, but should engage the work itself and interpret for one's self. This anthology provides responsive readers with just the text--providing students and teachers alike with a vast trove of verse, and empowering teacher and reader alike to seek whatever extraneous information she or he feels necessary. I have not found a more satisfying or comprehensive assortment of authors and titles collected in one volume. My only criticism is that selections sometimes seem to appeal more to the editor's aesthetic sense than to faithful representation of a poet's style. A work most characteristic of Emily Dickinson, for example, would be a few intensely compact lines of free verse, while the selections Oscar Williams chose for this anthology are typically a dozen lines or so with fairly regular meter and rhyme scheme. Intense study into any one poet would require looking into other sources. As a pocket-sized, broad collection of English poetry, this is as good as it gets.

I love the selection and have found many old favorites, and many new ones. That said, the font is ludicrously small and often too much ink was applied so deciphering the text can be a tad difficult. Still, for the selection alone, get some glasses and enjoy.

Well, the poetry is, of course, awesome. The book binding is, in their description, a library binding, which seems to mean that the usual hardcover book gets a coating of substantial plastic, which is ok. You could put your drink glass on it with no worries ; However, the photo of this book's cover on Amazon is true. All of the writing isn't on a paper protective cover; it's on the hard cover. It was a surprise to me, but I could deal with that. But the pages of the book are another story for me. They're just like a paperback...small size, greyish beige, rough textured paper. I think I'm being generous with 3 stars. I wouldn't buy it again, but will keep it, because I haven't been able to find another collection of great English-speaking poets.

I bought this book after seeing it in a film - In Her Shoes. The actress read from it - The Art of Losing. However, when I searched through this book I couldn't find it??? It's a poem by Elizabeth Bishop. I'm almost certain I saw this book title???

Meraviglioso, davvero meraviglioso.Ho ordinato questo libro in quanto appassionata di Letteratura inglese e studiosa della materia. Raccoglie al suo interno i maggiori e più famosi, oltre che apprezzabili, componimenti poetici della storia della letteratura inglese.Lo consiglio vivamente, anche come regalo, agli appassionati e amanti della materia, veramente ben fatto.La spedizione e l'imballaggio sempre ottimi: merito di Amazon chiaramente.

I lost my first copy of this book about a year ago and bought this one as a replacement. This anthology is what got me into poetry and remains one of my favourite poetry books a decade later; I cannot recommend it enough. That said, the glue binding feels a little delicate, so if you know yourself to be a rough user or want something to get your kids interested in poetry, look for the library binding.

I got the book today. But the quality of the print is really bad. Looks like a photocopy taken from an old copier..some pages are not even readable.. This is not the original book..

A very standard anthology.