Anthony Thwaite

A study, using surviving examples of Roman civilization, illustrating how the Romans affected British life during the 400 years following the invasion in 55 B.C.

This is the most authoritative and up to date survey of contemporary British poetry. It is the third version of a successful survey that first appeared in 1973, and provides a succinct and accessible overview of British poets, movements and themes. The study begins with the poetry of Robert Graves and considers such influential figures as John Betjeman, W. H. Auden, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, but much of the book focuses on the work of poets who have come into prominence recently, including Wendy Cope, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Glyn Maxwell, Sean O'Brien, and the 1995 Nobel prize winner for literature Seamus Heaney. Anthony Thwaite has completely updated and expanded his earlier version.

Many would call Philip Larkin the finest living poet writing in English. In this tribute to him on his sixtieth birthday, twenty writers have come together to celebrate the man and the poet with some specially written pieces. Some of them are reminiscent, some look at aspects of his professional life as librarian, some consider his taste as it reveals itself in his writings on jazz and in his editing of the 'Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse'. The relationship between his novesls and his poems is examined, and several essays explore the poems themselves. Three poets contribute hitherto unpublished poems. Together, all these illuminate with affection and insight the work, the man behind the work, and the appeal of both.