In the 1860s, Francis Turner Palgrave set out to collect the finest English lyrical poems in one volume. What he created was The Golden Treasury, an instant classic of verse anthologies. Over the last century, it has withstood the test of time as an immensely popular collection--becoming virtually synonymous with English verse for generations of readers.
Now available in a new edition for the first time in thirty years, The Golden Treasury is as delightful as ever, offering old classics together with the finest works of our own time. Here you can find priceless gems by Shakespeare, Byron, Tennyson, Yeats, and other immortal lights of literature. This new edition also serves as a map to the changing landscape of today's British verse, presenting outstanding poetry by both famous and lesser-known writers of Ireland and Great Britain: Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Fleur Adcock, Carol Ann Duffy, Douglas Dunn, Gavin Ewart, Tony Harrison, Elizabeth Jennings, Derek Mahon, Peter Porter, Carol Rumens, Anne Stevenson, and Hugo Williams, among others. Editor John Press is himself an accomplished poet and translator, and was editor of the previous edition, thus ensuring that the spirit of the original Golden Treasury is preserved. The result is a marvelous collection of British verse a source of unexpected delights and old favorites alike.