My Last Duchess and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

by Robert Browning (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Forty-two works revealing the Victorian poet’s great gifts as a poignant lyricist and a dramatist of great virtuosity. Collection includes a number of Browning’s famed dramatic monologues—"Fra Lippo Lippi," "How It Strikes a Contemporary" and "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church" among them—plus such memorable masterworks as "Love among the Ruins," "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," "Home Thoughts from Abroad" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister."

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (December 23, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486277836
• ISBN-13: 978-0486277837
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #402,990 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the easiest arrangment, but logical...., August 16, 2001

By	Jeffrey Leeper "kem2070" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I have started to read a bit on Browning and decided to get an idea of his poetry. Given the price of this book, this was a good choice.

Browning covered a lot of ideas, and all are written very intelligently. Reading through this book though, may cause you to scratch your head. If you read it, enjoy each selection rather than try to read straight through.

This is what I mean by the arrangement; I poem on the killing of a loved one (Porphyria's Lover) precedes the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The jump in ideas can slow you down a bit. The arrangement is logical in that the editors printed the poems in groups according to the collection they were originally published in. These collections, in turn, are arranged in chronological order. This is good because you can watch Browning's work as time progresses.

There are 42 poems in this selection. It does include the great ones (I will abbreviate titles) like Andrea del Sarto, Caliban upon Setebos, Karshish, Childe Roland, My Last Duchess, Fra Lippo Lippi, The Bishop Orders His Tomb, Johannes Agricola, and others.

I would recommend this book for reflecting on the occasional work of a great poet.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheap thrill!, May 8, 2003

By	Katie (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Robert Browning is a treat, especially to read out loud. This book includes "My Last Duchess," of course, and some great poems like "The Bishop Ordering His Tomb" and "Fra Lippo Lippi." I like to think of Robert Browning as the first poet of the twentieth century since he really can't be put in a box with Tennyson or other popular poets of his own time. Also, he had a big influence on Ezra Pound who, in turn, had a big influence on many popular poets today.

Dover Thrift Editions are surprisingly well-constructed - they'll outlast, say, your Oxford World Classics paperbacks - and the poetry is usually very well selected. Oh...and they're cheap!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grow old along with me, April 27, 2005

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made"

Browning is the poet of the dramatic monologue, the story told through the voice of a principal speaker, often an ironical one. Browning is an intellectual and moral poet whose work has a kind of toughness and strength. The poems in this small collection are among his most memorable and anthologized.
An excellent collection for coming to know one of the major Victorian English poets.