Best Remembered Poems [Paperback]

Martin Gardner (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 1992

The 126 poems in this superb collection of 19th- and 20th-century British and American verse range from the impassioned "Renascence" of Edna St. Vincent Millay to Edward Lear's whimsical "The Owl and the Pussycat."  Famous poets such as Wordsworth, Tennyson, Whitman, and Frost are well-represented, as are less well-known poets.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rock Me To Sleep by Elizabeth Akers Allen
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
The Tyger [tiger], Fr. Songs Of Experience by William Blake
Light [and Love] by Francis William Bourdillon
Pippa's Song [or, Morning] by Robert Browning
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
The Purple Cow by Frank Gelett Burgess
For A' That And A' That; Song 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
A Vagabond Song by Bliss Carman
Out Where The West Begins by Arthur Chapman
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A Book by Emily Dickinson
The Chariot by Emily Dickinson
Chartless by Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking by Emily Dickinson
Jabberwocky by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
The American Flag by Joseph Rodman Drake
Concord Hymn; Sung At Completion Of Concord Monument, 1836 by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Duel by Eugene Field
Little Boy Blue by Eugene Field
Wynken, Blynken And Nod by Eugene Field
The House By The Side Of The Road by Sam Walter Foss
Fire And Ice by Robert Frost
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
Home (2) by Edgar Albert Guest
It Couldn't Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest
Mary's Lamb by Sarah Josepha Buell Hale
Casabianca by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers In New England by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Echoes: 4. Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Echoes: 4. Invictus by William Ernest Henley
The Deacon's Masterpiece by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Bridge Of Sighs by Thomas Hood
The Song Of The Shirt by Thomas Hood
The Sea Gypsy [or Gipsy] by Richard Hovey
Battle Hymn Of The Republic by Julia Ward Howe
Abou Ben Adhem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
Jenny Kissed Me by James Henry Leigh Hunt
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
Trees by Alfred Joyce Kilmer
Boots by Rudyard Kipling
Danny Deever by Rudyard Kipling
Gunga Din by Rudyard Kipling
If by Rudyard Kipling
L'envoi by Rudyard Kipling
Mandalay by Rudyard Kipling
Recessional by Rudyard Kipling
Tommy [atkins] by Rudyard Kipling
The Owl And The Pussy Cat by Edward Lear
The Arrow And The Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Children's Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Day Is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Excelsior by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm Of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tales Of A Wayside Inn: 1. Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There Was A Little Girl by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Wreck Of The Hesperus by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Man With The Hoe by Edwin Markham
Sea-fever by John Masefield
In Flanders Fields by John Mccrae
Antigonish by Hughes Mearns
First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sonnet: 45 by Edna St. Vincent Millay
A Visit From St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore
Woodman, Spare That Tree! by George Pope Morris
The Barrel-organ by Alfred Noyes
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
Home, Sweet Home, Fr. Clari, The Maid Of Milan by John Howard Payne
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
To Helen (1) by Edgar Allan Poe
The Lost Chord by Adelaide Anne Procter
Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley
An Old Sweetheart [of Mine] by James Whitcomb Riley
The Old Swimmin'-hole by James Whitcomb Riley
When The Frost Is On The Punkin by James Whitcomb Riley
Chicago by Carl Sandburg
Fog by Carl Sandburg
The Blind Men And The Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe
Rendezvous by Alan Seeger
The Cremation Of Sam Mcgee by Robert William Service
The Shooting Of Dan Mcgrew by Robert William Service
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Evolution by Langdon Smith
The Battle Of Blenheim by Robert Southey
Bed In Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Happy Thought by Robert Louis Stevenson
Underwoods: Book 1: 21. Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Star by Jane Taylor
Break, Break, Break by Alfred Tennyson
The Charge Of The Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson
Crossing The Bar by Alfred Tennyson
Flower In The Crannied Wall by Alfred Tennyson
Casey At The Bat (2) by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight by Rose Hartwick Thorpe
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman
The Barefoot Boy by John Greenleaf Whittier
Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier
Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Winds Of Fate by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Old Oaken Bucket by Samuel Woodworth
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth
Daffodils by William Wordsworth
Evening On Calais Beach by William Wordsworth
The World; Sonnet by William Wordsworth
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications; annotated edition edition (December 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 048627165X
• ISBN-13: 978-0486271651
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Doggerel, Rhymes, Lyrics, Verses, and Revered Poetry, February 17, 2004

By 

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

This review is from: Best Remembered Poems (Paperback)

Martin Gardner, a noted author, editor and anthologist, compiled this collection of memorable poems by nineteenth and twentieth century American and British poets. This poetry is memorable in the sense that many readers will recognize the poems and may have even memorized some of these verses in their school days. Gardner admits that some entries he cares not a rap about and even considers them doggerel. Others he remembers from childhood and still cherishes.

Gardner's anthology, Best Remembered Poems, does not pretend to be the best poems in the English language, but this collection does make entertaining reading. Some poems once widely popular now seem atrocious. Others still resonate despite the passage of generations. I appreciated Gardner's short and often amusing introduction to each poem. For much of this poetry Gardner has the audacity to provide humorous parodies. This is obviously poetry to have fun with, not poetry to be intimidated by.

You may be familiar with similar anthologies. How does this collection of 123 poems compare with other collections that claim to be the 100 best loved poems, the 100 best poems, and the 101 most famous poems?

The little Dover edition, 100 Best-Loved Poems (edited by Philip Smith), overlaps significantly with Gardner's anthology. They share 39 poems. Phillip Smith offers more poetry from Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Milton, Marvell, Hardy, Hopkins, Housman, Yeats, and other famous poets.

In his introduction Gardner pokes fun at the most successful of all anthologies, One Hundred and One Famous Poems (compiled by Roy J. Cook, 1929), for its high proportion of outdated and discarded poets. And yet, Gardner also shares 39 poems with Cook's collection, suggesting more affinity than Gardner might have recognized.

The third comparison is with 100 Poems by 100 Poets, the finest poetry in the English language, so say its three authors: Harold Pinter, Geoffrey Godbert, and Anthony Astbury. The overlap with this more scholarly collection is hardly noticeable as only five poems are shared.

Gardner's collection includes the rather lengthy poem Thanatopsis, a favorite of high school literature classes in the early decades of the twentieth century. Unexpectedly, a few years ago as my wife's mother lay dying of cancer, she quoted the second half of Thanatopsis in full and without any errors. She had remembered this poem for more than sixty years.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Echoes and Memories, January 5, 2000

By 

P. Russ (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Best Remembered Poems (Paperback)

Open the book to any page, and you will read phrases you've heard all your life but never knew, or now can't remember, from where they came. It's a great English language poetry course in a single volume. The only book in it's class is "The Top 100 Poems" (which costs 5 times as much).

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Wonderful Poetry, February 14, 2001

By 

Judith Miller (Bluemont, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Best Remembered Poems (Paperback)

This is an enjoyable grouping of over 100 poems. There are many that most of us will remember but a few that I had never read before. Some of these poems are the very ones that were read to us as children: "THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT," "THE DUEL," and "LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE." Reading these old favorites again brings back memories of my sister, Joan who always had time to read to me.

I also enjoyed encountering a few of the poems that my teachers made me study: "THE LOST CHORD," which was turned into a hymn and often song by Enrico Caruso; the very inspiring "INVICTUS," and the sad but lyrical "ANNABEL LEE." It's rather amazing how much more meaning you can take from the poems when you read them as an adult.

There are also very interesting short biographies of each author and these are not the versions that we learned in school. They make the poets seem real and not quite so lofty. Unfortunately, many people never learn to appreciate poetry, but I think that perhaps they may not have realized that the key to poetry is their own imagination.