Best known for his sexually provocative Poems and Ballads (1866), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was much admired throughout the 19th-century for his daring subject matter and superb poetic craftsmanship. After a decline in popularity in the twentieth century, his reputation has steadily recovered, and he is now becoming more widely read and studied. This book introduces the reader to the work for which Swinburne is most famous, concentrating on three major collections - Poems and Ballads 1(1866), Songs before Sunrise (1871) and Poems and Ballads 2(1878), as well as a number of his...

Algernon CharlesSwinburne (1837-1909), dramatist, novelist, and critic, was late Victorian England's unofficial Poet Laureate. Swinburne was admired by his contemporaries for his technical brilliance, his facility with classical and medieval forms, and his courage in expressing his sensual, erotic imagination. His first and best-known verse collection, Poems and Ballads (1866), notable for its consummate craftsmanship and provocative subject matter, created an unrivalled sensation. His radical republican views as expressed in his later political collection Songs before Sunrise (1871)...