'Next to the Bible, In Memoriam is my comfort.' Queen Victoria's reliance, after the death of Prince Albert, on this poem by Alfred Tennyson (1809 92), Poet Laureate from 1850, epitomises its place at the heart of Victorian public and private life. The most famous poem of its age and an instant bestseller, In Memoriam was an elegy for Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson's closest friend, who had died young in Vienna in 1833. Its distinctive iambic tetrameter stanzas begun days after the news reached Tennyson, and reworked for the next seventeen years explore the nature of grief, religious...

'Next to the Bible, In Memoriam is my comfort.' Queen Victoria's reliance, after the death of Prince Albert, on this poem by Alfred Tennyson (1809 92), Poet Laureate from 1850, epitomises its place at the heart of Victorian public and private life. The most famous poem of its age and an instant bestseller, In Memoriam was an elegy for Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson's closest friend, who had died young in Vienna in 1833. Its distinctive iambic tetrameter stanzas begun days after the news reached Tennyson, and reworked for the next seventeen years explore the nature of grief, religious...

Tennyson had a life-long interest in the legend of King Arthur and after the huge success of his poem 'Morte d'Arthur' he built on the theme with this series of twelve poems, written in two periods of intense creativity over nearly twenty years. Idylls of the King traces the story of Arthur's rule, from his first encounter with Guinevere and the quest for the Holy Grail to the adultery of his Queen with Launcelot and the King's death in a final battle that spells the ruin of his kingdom. Told with lyrical and dreamlike eloquence, Tennyson's depiction of the Round Table reflects a...

Tennyson was the chief poetic voice of his age, and he remains one of the most highly regarded masters of the music and mood of verse. This authoritative edition brings together a unique combination of Tennyson's poetry and prose, spanning his entire career, from his striking juvenilia, through his career as Poet Laureate, to the powerful poetry he wrote in his ninth decade. It contains such classics as "The Lady of Shalott," "Morte d'Arthur," Break, Break, Break," "Locksley Hall," "Ulysses," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and "Tears, Idle Tears." It also includes in its entirety...

This collection includes, of course, such celebrated poems as "The Lady of Shalott" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade." There are extracts from all the major masterpieces-"Idylls of the King," "The Princess," "In Memoriam"-and several complete long poems, such as "Ulysses" and "Demeter and Persephone," that demonstrate his narrative grace. Finally, there are many of the short lyrical poems, such as "Come into the Garden, Maud" and "Break, Break, Break," for which he is justly celebrated.

Published in 1850, "In Memoriam" won its author the Poet Laureateship of Britain and received widespread attention from critics and reviewers, as well as ordinary readers. The poem was written in memory of Tennyson's close friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833; it became a kind of unofficial devotional manual for mourners, including Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert. The poem's scope goes beyond individual grief, however, to the development and extinction of species, audaciously exploring history, evolution and God's relationship with humanity. Its formal beauty...

In Memoriam