Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Volume 1

by Thomas Percy

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1866 edition by Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig.

Genres: Poetry, Literature, Romanticism

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1765

About the author

Thomas Percy was an English antiquarian and bishop whose collection of ballads, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), awakened widespread interest in English and Scottish traditional songs.

Reviews

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended for anyone interested in English poetry. There are constant moments of recognition: where W.S. Gilbert got the Willow Song in The Mikado, or where the scene in Monty Python with the Black Knight came from:

For Wetharryngton my harte was wo,
That ever he slayne shulde be;
For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to,
Yet he knyled and fought on hys kne.

And, because of the obscure language, there are striking unique turns of phrase everywhere:

The meate, that we must supp withall,
It runneth yet fast on fote.

Some of the poems are good and some are bad, but the book was so influential that it's essential to understanding the history of English literature.

[Liam Guilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the wrong edition, but I haven't had this much fun reading a book in ages.

Fayre Alyce like a lover true
took a pollaxe in her hande
said, he shall die that cometh in
This dore whyle I may stande

where'd Fayre Alyce get to in later fiction?

[Barnaby Hazen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who am I to rate this?

[Matthew Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must for the sheer historical joy of reading such a scholarly tome from the early 1700s, which was therefore capable of talking about Charles II as the 'recent' past, and the Norman Conquest as an unfortunate event we're still waiting to see the result of.