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English Romantic Poets
English Romantic Poets
Jan 13, 2026 9:16 AM

Author:Various,Jonathan Bate

English Romantic Poets

'All good poetry is the spontaneous poetry of powerful feelings' -William Wordsworth

No generation of poets has felt more powerfully and enduringly than the Romantics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In this indispensable volume, Sir Jonathan Bate - prizewinning biographer of Wordsworth, Keats and John Clare - brings together the most loved poems of the age, together with many forgotten gems. Alongside classics such as Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' and 'Frost at Midnight', the odes of Keats and generous selections from Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads and The Prelude, the reader will discover the wit of Byron, the wildness of Blake, the passion of Shelley, a wealth of nature poems by Clare, and the distinctive voices of women Romantics such as Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans, Dorothy Wordsworth and Letitia Landon.

Reviews

Praise for The Bridge Kingdom - Heart-pounding romance and intense action wrapped in a spellbinding world. I was hooked from the first page!

—— Elise Kova, USA Today bestselling author of A Deal with the Elf King

An epic, action-packed tale of love, revenge, and betrayal

—— Jennifer Estep, New York Times bestselling author of Kill the Queen

Exquisite, phenomenal, and sexy, The Bridge Kingdom is the epitome of fantasy romance perfection. I adored Jensen's world and characters. Aren and Lara were magnificent individually and together, a couple you'll root for from beginning to end

—— Oliva Wildenstein, USA Today bestselling author of Feather

Praise for Danielle Jensen - Richly-woven, evocative and absolutely impossible to put down . . . I loved every word

—— Sarah J. Maas bestselling author of, A Court of Thorns and Roses

Richly-woven, evocative, and absolutely impossible to put down - I was hooked from the first lines! Dark Shores has everything I look for in a fantasy novel: fresh, unique settings, a cast of complex and diverse characters, and an unflinching boldness with the nuanced world-building. I loved every word

—— Sarah J. Maas

The book grabs readers from the beginning with its stellar world-building and multidimensional characters

—— Kirkus Reviews

Stunning world-building, a vivid cast of secondary characters, and a steamy slow-burn romance between two exceedingly competent and compelling heroes. Dark Shores is not one to miss

—— Booklist

This slim novella of barely 150 pages contains a world of emotion ... The kindness of strangers is Joyce's theme, as well as forgiveness and grief. No one writes difficult feelings better.

—— Wendy Holden , Daily Mail

Life-affirming. If you loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, make time to read this finale to the trilogy ... A touching tale about heartbreak and healing.

—— Good Housekeeping

A gorgeous read.

—— Anna Bonet , the i paper

Fry fans will delight in this tale of a redemptive journey and the kindness of strangers. A new Joyce. Rejoice anew!

—— Saga magazine

A real treat ... A story about belonging and understanding.

—— Nina Pottell , Prima

Rachel Joyce has a genius for creating the most damaged and difficult character and making us care deeply about their redemption. Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North is a powerful finale to her classic trilogy of heartbreak and healing.

—— Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

At last it's Maureen's turn! It may only have the physical heft of a novella but Rachel Joyce's angry-sad latest packs the weight of a long marriage into the space of several well ironed handkerchiefs. Just brilliant.

—— Patrick Gale

Maureen Fry is wonderfully complex, flinty and closed and obsessive yet full of love and concern for others as she navigates her present and her past, carrying her terrible burdens of grief and guilt.
Rachel Joyce is deeply attuned to the complex rhythms of life and love and she sublimates this understanding, sentence by delicate, powerful, glistening sentence into an unforgettable story. It's beautiful all through, but the closing chapters are just astonishing, transcendent and hope-filled and life-affirming. I'll never forget this wonderful novel or the sunny, slightly teary day I spent reading it.

—— Donal Ryan

This book is short but very special. As fans of Rachel Joyce might expect, it's funny, touching and quite beautiful. It's also packed with wisdom about love and loss - and is sure to provide comfort to anyone who's known grief.

—— Matt Cain, author of The Secreet Life of Albert Entwistle

Maureen is so beautifully and unflinchingly portrayed - a complex contradiction of brittle and prickly with an underbelly of fragility and fear. Her journey - both physical and psychological - is compelling and profoundly moving and leaves the reader feeling fully satisfied and just a little lighter.

—— Ruth Hogan

In this slender, lyrical novel, Rachel Joyce offers a story as epic and encompassing as that wide-armed angel of the North. A journey of redemption, forgiveness and love. A journey you don't want to miss.

—— Helen Paris, author of Lost Property

Rachel Joyce writes with incredible depth, beauty and heart. Reading her prose is like listening to great music - sometimes soft and sweet, sometimes heart-rending, always beguiling. This is an emotional story about loss, resilience and reconciliation. Maureen Fry is a prickly kind of star... but wow, how she shines!

—— Hazel Prior, author of Call of the Penguins

Beautifully written and endlessly touching, Rachel Joyce once again captures what it means to be human in the final book of her wonderful trilogy.

—— Phaedra Patrick

Maureen is the sort of person we pass in the street every day, every hour, and probably give little thought to. She is difficult perhaps, a little brittle, unable to engage successfully with the world, and maybe hard to warm to - an embattled figure often lost against the vast opera of life. But Rachel allows us to see into her complex universe, feel first-hand her fears, the profound longing, the grim phantoms of the past, the ordered rebelliousness, and strange, dark sense of humour - and of shame. This story also happens to tie three life-affirming, vital and unpredictable novels together into a perfect, never-ending dance..

—— Damian Dibben, author of The Colour Storm

This is a deceptively simple story of love, forgiveness, fulfilment and hope. I can't think of any other novelist quite as tender and compassionate as Rachel Joyce, who understands that miracle of transformation when human fragility becomes strength of spirit.

—— Bel Mooney

This is a fitting and deeply moving end to the trilogy of Harold Fry. A portrait of a woman adrift in grief, it is as fragile as a songbird and just as beautiful.

—— Sarah Winman

Profoundly moving and deeply human, this story of self-discovery and forgiveness is essential reading. I loved every word.

—— Bonnie Garmus

I adored Harold & Queenie, but who knew Maureen waited in the wings to steal my heart? A testament to just how exquisitely Rachel Joyce understands people, and written with kindness and such perception. I can't recommend it enough.

—— Joanna Cannon

I was enthralled from the first page of this short, powerful book. Maureen is a wonderful, frustrating character--so rigid, and so frightened of what she might learn about herself and her own past. We all have some Maureen inside us, and so the journey we take with her across England and into her own personal tumult is a satisfying, visceral one.

—— Ann Napolitano

Astonishingly powerful... Truly stunning

—— Ruth Jones

Book of the Month

—— SAGA MAGAZINE

Atkinson's latest fictional treat is packed with intrigue... one can never underestimate the pleasurable power of [her] ability to stud her narrative with humor

—— BOSTON GLOBE

An absorbing tale

—— SUNDAY EXPRESS

The latest novel from an author who never lets you down

—— READER'S DIGEST

This terrific novel is alternately hilarious and sad

—— Upfront

It may change your life

—— The Observer

Pearson is a very witty and moving writer. Her prose is spare and skilful...waspish truisms and spot-on social observations

—— Daily Express

Intelligent, witty and of-the-moment, it mixes sassy, brittle perceptions with barefaced sentimentality

—— The Herald, Glasgow

Brilliantly captures and defines the mood of the moment...sparkling wit and razor sharp insights

—— XW Magazine

Sharply observed and frequently funny

—— Evening Standard

The success of the story - and a success it is - comes not from the ingenious scientific speculations, nor the shrewd literary connections (on the "emotional telepathy" of a work of art, or Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon), but the human story between father and son, as Theo finds out 'how my brain learns to resemble what it loves

—— The Critic

Richard Powers's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel is both brutal and heartwarming, intimate and profound. A masterfully curated story of love, grief and loneliness, quietly building to an inevitable and devastating close

—— Press Association

He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read. I'm in awe of his talent

—— Oprah Winfrey

In Bewilderment, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist has crafted a story of great beauty and power

—— Business Post
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