Customer Reviews

100 Best-Loved Poems

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Some classic old favorites among the 100 poems. A good little book you can open and read from poems 1 through a 100. If you only have a few minutes open anywhere and read a poem or two.

The poetry in this book covers a period from the middle ages to modern times and is arranged in order of date.You will find well known names such as Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth to name a few.
That said, I was surprised by how many of the verses I had never heard of or read before although this is called '100 Best Loved Poems'.Some of the poems featured here are quite obscure. There are some well known ones such as 'Charge of the light brigade' and 'Daffodils' but if you are looking for a book that will help you brush up on all of those half remembered snippets of poetry from your schooldays, then this may not be the choice for you. Having said that, this is a very low price for a collection of poems and if you do want something a little different, then at this price it may be worth adding to your bookshelf.

Philip Smith has assembled a very good sampling of the best poetry in the English language. We read Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Gray, Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, both Brownings, Longfellow, Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Hardy, Housman, Yeats, Frost, Pound, Millay, Cummings, Auden, Dylan Thomas, and many others.

The collection is as advertised: these are the best-loved poems in the English language. These are familiar poems, poems that are accessible to casual readers of poetry, poems that continue to resonate today. Smith's compilation is fun to read and to reread. Any teacher would find it ideal for introductory English literature classes, honors high school or college.

What is missing? This collection excludes translations of classical poetry, poetry of the non-English speaking world, and contemporary English-speaking poets. But this little book contains enough gems to satisfy any treasure hunter.

This Dover edition is an excellent buy. Just imagine, great poetry for only a penny per poem.

Looking for a more eclectic anthology? See 100 Poems by 100 Poets compiled by Harold Pinter, Geoffrey Godbert, and Anthony Astbury. They present what they consider (by unanimous decision, often after heated argument) to be the best poem by each of the 100 best poets in the English language. Their choices only occasionally overlap with the better known selections in Philip Smith's Dover edition.

One Hundred and One Famous Poems, compiled by Roy J. Cook in 1927, has long been a favorite anthology of British and American poets. It is an interesting collection, as it includes many poets that are now less familiar or even forgotten, but who were popular in the early part of the last century. Take a look at this anthology. You will be pleasantly surprised. It has been reprinted many times and it is not difficult to find copies on the Internet.

This is a nice, inexpensive book to have in your collection or even to teach an introductory poetry class from. It has a lot of good material, Poe, Dickinson, Frost, etc.

And hey, it's a buck...why not?

Beautiful works. Major bargain. I read them to my baby.

This is a great collection of classic rhyming poems. I found many of my favorite poems, including "If" and "The Raven". And the price is right. If you want a more durable collection, you might try another favorite of mine, "Poetry for a Lifetime". This beautiful volume includes many of these poems and is illustrated and has comments from the editor. I highly recommend both books.

this book is copyrighted 1927? that's the book I am hoping to find

It was one of the best poetry books I've ever read

Dover has always been known for making fascinating books available for a song - here's one you can have for even less than a song! For a mere 80 cents, you get, as the title promises, 100 poems, best-loved poems at that. A volume to cherish, or to give as gifts - suitable for anybody, of any age, whether they love poems or need a place to start.