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The Oxford Book of Travel Verse
As pilgrims, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, diplomats, merchants, and tourists, the British have for centuries ventured forth to see the world. Great poets such as Marvell, Shelley, Coleridge, and Rossetti, as well as many other lesser known lyricists have recorded excursions abroad
in their poetry. Brought together for the first time in an anthology that will delight and inspire both the adventurous traveler and the armchair dreamer, this collection charts the British experience abroad over five centuries as reflected in their verse.
Covering many continents and countries and including poets as varied as John Betjeman, William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lawrence Durrell, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Stephen Spender, Oscar Wilde, and D.J. Enright, this marvelous anthology reveals not only the
various motives which drove the British to travel abroad, but also, by arranging the poems geographically, exposes historical relationships, prejudices, and predilections.
in their poetry. Brought together for the first time in an anthology that will delight and inspire both the adventurous traveler and the armchair dreamer, this collection charts the British experience abroad over five centuries as reflected in their verse.
Covering many continents and countries and including poets as varied as John Betjeman, William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lawrence Durrell, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Stephen Spender, Oscar Wilde, and D.J. Enright, this marvelous anthology reveals not only the
various motives which drove the British to travel abroad, but also, by arranging the poems geographically, exposes historical relationships, prejudices, and predilections.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Kevin Crossley-Holland
206 books245 followersKevin Crossley-Holland is an English poet and prize-winning author for children. His books include Waterslain Angels, a detective story set in north Norfolk in 1955, and Moored Man: A Cycle of North Norfolk Poems; Gatty's Tale, a medieval pilgrimage novel; and the Arthur trilogy (The Seeing Stone, At the Crossing-Places and King of the Middle March), which combines historical fiction with the retelling of Arthurian legend.
The Seeing Stone won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal. The Arthur trilogy has won worldwide critical acclaim and has been translated into 21 languages.
Crossley-Holland has translated Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon, and his retellings of traditional tales include The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales (reissued as The Magic Lands). His collaborations with composers include two operas with Nicola Lefanu ("The Green Children" and "The Wildman") and one with Rupert Bawden, "The Sailor’s Tale"; song cycles with Sir Arthur Bliss and William Mathias; and a carol with Stephen Paulus for King’s College, Cambridge. His play, The Wuffings, (co-authored with Ivan Cutting) was produced by Eastern Angles in 1997.
He often lectures abroad on behalf of the British Council, regularly leads sessions for teachers and librarians, and visits primary and secondary schools. He offers poetry and prose workshops and talks on the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, King Arthur, heroines and heroes, and myth, legend and folk-tale.
After seven years teaching in Minnesota, where he held an Endowed Chair in the Humanities, Kevin Crossley-Holland returned to the north Norfolk coast in East Anglia, where he now lives.
He has a Minnesotan wife, Linda, two sons (Kieran and Dominic) and two daughters (Oenone and Eleanor). He is an Honorary Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, a patron of the Society of Storytelling and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
The Seeing Stone won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal. The Arthur trilogy has won worldwide critical acclaim and has been translated into 21 languages.
Crossley-Holland has translated Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon, and his retellings of traditional tales include The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales (reissued as The Magic Lands). His collaborations with composers include two operas with Nicola Lefanu ("The Green Children" and "The Wildman") and one with Rupert Bawden, "The Sailor’s Tale"; song cycles with Sir Arthur Bliss and William Mathias; and a carol with Stephen Paulus for King’s College, Cambridge. His play, The Wuffings, (co-authored with Ivan Cutting) was produced by Eastern Angles in 1997.
He often lectures abroad on behalf of the British Council, regularly leads sessions for teachers and librarians, and visits primary and secondary schools. He offers poetry and prose workshops and talks on the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, King Arthur, heroines and heroes, and myth, legend and folk-tale.
After seven years teaching in Minnesota, where he held an Endowed Chair in the Humanities, Kevin Crossley-Holland returned to the north Norfolk coast in East Anglia, where he now lives.
He has a Minnesotan wife, Linda, two sons (Kieran and Dominic) and two daughters (Oenone and Eleanor). He is an Honorary Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, a patron of the Society of Storytelling and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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