Marvell Poems

Pocket clothbound volumes from the world's greatest poets, and with a stunning range of anthologies. Each volume has an elegant jacket, full cloth sewn binding, silk ribbon marker and headbands, with gold stamping on front and spine and decorative endpapers. In size, price and presentation they make ideal gifts and are a joy to read and collect. More than eighty titles in print.

The great seventeenth-century metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell was one of the chief wits and satirists of his time as well as a passionate defender of individual liberty.

I62IBorn at Winestead-in-Holderness, Yorkshire, March 3I to the Rev. Andrew Marvell and his wife, Anne. 
 
I624Marvells move to Hull, where Rev. Andrew Marvell becomes lecturer in Holy Trinity Church. 
 
I633Marvell matriculates at Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
I637Greek and Latin poems on Charles I and Queen Mary published. 
 
I638Marvell becomes a scholar of Trinity. 
 
I640Father dies. Marvell leaves Cambridge. 
 
I640-42Possible clerkship in trading-house of brother-in-law, Edmund Popple. 
 
I642-46?Travel abroad as tutor. (Dates uncertain.) 
 
I648-49Poems on Villiers (authorship questionable), Lovelace, Hastings. 
 
I650"An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland." 
 
I650-53Tutors Mary, daughter of the Lord General Fairfax, at Appleton House, Yorkshire. 
 
I653Milton's letter to Bradshaw, recommending Marvell for a government position, February 2I. No appointment forthcoming, Marvell becomes tutor to Cromwell's ward, William Dutton. Lives at Eton. "The Character of Holland." 
 
I653-54Latin Poems on Queen Christina of Sweden, Dr. Ingelo. 
 
I655"The First Anniversary of the Government Under His Highness The Lord Protector." 
 
I656Marvell and Dutton at Saumur, France. 
 
I657Marvell becomes Latin Secretary under Secretary of State Thurloe. 
 
I658"A Poem upon the Death of His late Highnesse the Lord Protector 
 
I659-78Marvell serves as M. P. for Hull. 
 
I660Intervenes in Commons to save Milton. 
 
I663-65Accompanies Earl of Carlisle as secretary on embassy to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. 
 
I665England provokes war with Holland. "The Second Advice to a Painter." 
 
I666"The Third Advice to a Painter." 
"Clarendon's Housewarming." 
 
I667"The Last Instructions to a Painter." Downfall of Clarendon. War ends. 
 
I670"On Blood's Stealing the Crown." 
 
I672The Declaration of Indulgence. The Rehearsal Transpos'd. 
 
I672-74War with France as ally against Holland. Marvell as "Mr. Thomas" active in Dutch-based anti-French, anti-Catholic fifth column. 
 
I674Second edition of Paradise Lost, prefaced by Marvell's poem. 
 
I676Mr. Smirke: or the Divine in Mode. 
 
I677The Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government. 
 
I678Marvell elected younger warden of Trinity House, London. Dies August I8. 
 
I68IMiscellaneous Poems published by "Mary Marvell."

He is known chiefly for his brilliant lyric poems, including "The Garden," "The Definition of Love," "Bermudas," "To His Coy Mistress," and the "Horatian Ode" to Cromwell. Marvell's work is marked by extraordinary variety, ranging from incomparable lyric explorations of the inner life to satiric poems on the famous men and important issues of his time-one of the most politically volatile epochs in England's history. From the lover's famous admonition, "Had we but World enough, and Time, / This coyness, Lady, were no crime," to the image of the solitary poet "Annihilating all that's made / To a green Thought in a green Shade," Marvell's poetry has earned a permanent place in the canon and in the hearts of poetry lovers.

The Complete Poems

The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.

Perhaps the most accessible English lyric poet of the seventeenth century, Marvell was also a master of political satire. Passionate and brilliant, witty and learned, this astute man of affairs combined the friendship of Milton with the patronage of Cromwell and the admiration of Charles II.

The wittiest and yet most accessible writing in mid-seventeeth-century England, Andrew Marvell's poetry is both passionate and brillant, erotic and comic, cool courtly and seductive. The friend. admirer and supporter of Milton, Marvell was also a very great poet in his own right. Described by a contemporary as 'of middling stature, pretty strong-set, of roundish face, cherry-cheeked, hazel-eyed, brown-haired he was a man of the people and a brillant intellectual. The fact that he was both a republican and the admired favourite of Charles II indicates the breadth of his sympathies.

Andrew Marvell

Jonathan Bate

Elizabeth Donno

Member of Parliament, tutor to Oliver Cromwell's ward, satirist and friend of John Milton, Andrew Marvell was one of the most interesting and important poets of the seventeenth century. The Complete Poems demonstrates his unique skill and immense diversity to the full, and includes lyrical love-poetry, religious works and biting satire. From the passionately erotic To his Coy Mistress, to the astutely political Cromwellian poems and the profoundly spiritual On a Drop of Dew, in which he considers the nature of the soul, these works are masterpieces of clarity and metaphysical imagery. Eloquent and compelling, they remain among the most vital and profound works of the era - works by a figure who, in the words of T. S. Eliot, 'speaks clearly and unequivocally with the voice of his literary age'.

Andrew Marvell

Books by Andrew Marvell

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