100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) [Paperback]

Philip Smith (Editor)

Book Description

Age Level: 11 and up | Grade Level: 6 and up | Series: Dover Thrift Editions

Popular, well-known poetry: "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" "Death, be not proud," "The Raven," "The Road Not Taken," plus works by Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Emerson, Browning, Keats, Kipling, Sandburg, Pound, Auden, Thomas, and many others.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
Musee Des Beaux Arts by Wystan Hugh Auden
The Lamb, Fr. Songs Of Innocence by William Blake
London, Fr. Songs Of Experience by William Blake
The Sick Rose, Fr. Songs Of Experience by William Blake
The Tyger [tiger], Fr. Songs Of Experience by William Blake
Sonnets From The Portuguese: 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough by Robert Burns
The Destruction Of Sennacherib by George Gordon Byron
She Walks In Beauty by George Gordon Byron
Song by George Gordon Byron
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
50 Poems: 29 by Edward Estlin Cummings
The Chariot by Emily Dickinson
Dying by Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You by Emily Dickinson
This Is My Letter To The World by Emily Dickinson
Jabberwocky by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
The Good-morrow by John Donne
Holy Sonnet: 10 by John Donne
Holy Sonnet: 14 by John Donne
Concord Hymn; Sung At Completion Of Concord Monument, 1836 by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
Ode On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub by Thomas Gray
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy
Love (3) by George Herbert
To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time by Robert Herrick
Upon Julia's Clothes by Robert Herrick
The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord by Gerard Manley Hopkins
A Shropshire Lad: 19. To An Athlete Dying Young by Alfred Edward Housman
Abou Ben Adhem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
Jenny Kissed Me by James Henry Leigh Hunt
On My First Son by Ben Jonson
Song: To Celia by Ben Jonson
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
Ode On A Grecian Urn by John Keats
Ode To A Nightingale by John Keats
On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer by John Keats
Sonnet by John Keats
Gunga Din by Rudyard Kipling
If by Rudyard Kipling
Recessional by Rudyard Kipling
The River-merchant's Wife: A Letter by Li Po
The Children's Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To Lucasta, [on] Going To The Wars by Richard Lovelace
The Passionate Shepherd To His Love by Christopher Marlowe
To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
Lucifer In Starlight by George Meredith
First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sonnet: 19. On His Blindness by John Milton
Sonnet: 23. On His Deceased Wife by John Milton
Poetry by Marianne Moore
Summer's Last Will And Testament: A Litany In Time Of Plague by Thomas Nashe
Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
To Helen (1) by Edgar Allan Poe
Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson
A Birthday by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Chicago by Carl Sandburg
Fog by Carl Sandburg
Sonnet: 116 by William Shakespeare
Sonnet: 18 by William Shakespeare
Sonnet: 73 by William Shakespeare
Sonnet: 94 by William Shakespeare
Ode To The West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Emperor Of Ice-cream by Wallace Stevens
Underwoods: Book 1: 21. Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Song [or, Orsames' Song] by John Suckling
The Charge Of The Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson
Crossing The Bar by Alfred Tennyson
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
Lord Rendal by Anonymous
Sir Patrick Spens by Anonymous
The Retreat by Henry Vaughan
Song by Edmund Waller
I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
Barbara Frietchie by John Greenleaf Whittier
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth
Daffodils by William Wordsworth
The World; Sonnet by William Wordsworth
The Lover Showeth How He Is Forsaken by Thomas Wyatt
The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 11 and up
  
• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (October 4, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486285537
• ISBN-13: 978-0486285535
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Anthologies
  • #3 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > General
  • #30 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful collection, October 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: 100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

This is a great collection of classic rhyming poems. I found many of my favorite poems, including "If" and "The Raven". And the price is right. If you want a more durable collection, you might try another favorite of mine, "Poetry for a Lifetime". This beautiful volume includes many of these poems and is illustrated and has comments from the editor. I highly recommend both books.

56 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Selection of American and British Poetry, February 16, 2003

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

Philip Smith has assembled a very good sampling of the best poetry in the English language. We read Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Gray, Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, both Brownings, Longfellow, Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Hardy, Housman, Yeats, Frost, Pound, Millay, Cummings, Auden, Dylan Thomas, and many others. This inexpensive Dover edition is an excellent buy.

The collection is as advertised: these are the best-loved poems in the English language. These are familiar poems, poems that are accessible to casual readers of poetry, poems that continue to resonate today. Smith's compilation is fun to read and to reread. Any teacher would find it ideal for introductory English literature classes, honors high school or college.

What is missing? This collection excludes translations of classical poetry, poetry of the non-English speaking world, and contemporary English-speaking poets. But this little book contains enough gems to satisfy any treasure hunter.

Looking for a more eclectic anthology? See 100 Poems by 100 Poets compiled by Harold Pinter, Geoffrey Godbert, and Anthony Astbury. They present what they consider (by unanimous decision, often after heated argument) to be the best poem by each of the 100 best poets in the English language. Their choices only occasionally overlap with the better known selections in Philip Smith's Dover edition.

Another good choice is One Hundred and One Famous Poems, compiled by Roy J. Cook in 1927, that has long been a favorite anthology of British and American poets. It is an interesting collection, as it includes many poets that are now less familiar or even forgotten, but who were popular in the early part of the twentieth century. Take a look at this anthology. You will be pleasantly surprised. It has been reprinted many times and it is not difficult to find.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best 80 cents I ever spent!, May 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: 100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

Beautiful works. Major bargain. I read them to my baby.