Written by Edward Thomas
Read by Barnaby Edwards
Thomas was working on his debut collection, to be published under the pseudonym ‘Edward Eastway’, when he was killed in action in France in April 1917. His work combines a romantic but unsentimental love of the countryside with a brutally honest depiction of the horrors of the Great War.
Dur: 2hrs 02minsSTEREO
Available as 320kbps Stereo MP3s - 311MB
Written by The Brontës
Read by Miriam Margolyes and Barnaby Edwards
Each Brontë sibling has her or his distinct voice, but their poems share common themes about unrequited love, the persistence of memory, physical and intellectual isolation, loneliness, the loss of loved ones, the longing for home and the power and beauty of nature.
Dur: 1hrs 29minsSTEREO
Available as 320kbps Stereo MP3s - 246MB
Written by Robert Browning
Read by Martin Jarvis
Browning’s work, like that of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, has undergone much critical reappraisal in recent years. His sharp wit and keen psychological eye give his work a startling freshness and modernity.
Dur: 1hrs 49minsSTEREO
Available as 320kbps Stereo MP3s - 279MB
Written by Andrew Marvell
Read by Nicholas Pegg
Reappraised by later generations and now famed for the elegant style, enigmatic wit and emotive power of works like ‘The Garden’, ‘The Definition of Love’ and ‘To His Coy Mistress’, Marvell has taken his place among the greatest of the metaphysical poets.
Dur: 1hrs 39minsSTEREO
Available as 320kbps Stereo MP3s - 260MB
Written by Christina Rossetti
Read by Miriam Margolyes
Christina wrote poetry from the age of seven. The publication of her most famous collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), made her a household name and secured her status alongside Elizabeth Barrett Browning as one of the most influential female voices in nineteenth-century poetry.
Dur: 1hrs 28minsSTEREO
Available as 320kbps Stereo MP3s - 209MB
Written by Thomas Hardy
Read by Martin Jarvis
The poems in this collection display Hardy's characteristic interplay between life and fate. Sometimes bleak, sometimes darkly humorous, sometimes painfully personal, each poem pits the intensity of human existence – our loves, our hatreds, our desires, our disappointments – against the indifference of the natural world. Whether set on the battlefield or the cornfield, Hardy's poems are suffused by an unsentimental melancholy and a quiet hope.
Dur: 1hrs 10minsSTEREO
Available as 320kbps Stereo MP3s - 218MB