The Complete Poetry

A wonderful edition of Herbert's poetry, edited by his acclaimed biographer John Drury and including elegant new translations of his Latin verse by Victoria Moul. 
 
George Herbert wrote, but never published, some of the very greatest English poetry, recording in an astonishing variety of forms his inner experiences of grief, recovery, hope, despair, anger, fulfilment and - above all else - love. This volume, edited by John Drury, collects Herbert's complete poetry - including such classics of English devotional poetry as 'The Altar', Easter-Wings' and 'Love'. It also includes the verse Herbert wrote in Latin, newly translated into English by Victoria Moul. 
 
George Herbert was born in 1593 and died at the age of 39 in 1633, before the clouds of civil war gathered. He showed worldly ambition and seemed sure of high public office and a career at court, but then for a time 'lost himself in a humble way', devoting himself to the restoration of a church and then to his parish of Bemerton, three miles from Salisbury. When in the year of his death his friend Nicholas Ferrar published Herbert's poems under the title The Temple, his fame was quickly established. 
 
John Drury is Chaplain and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His books include The Burning Bush (1990), Painting the Word (1999), and, most recently, Music at Midnight, the culmination of a lifetime's interest in Herbert. 
 
Victoria Moul is Lecturer in Latin Literature and Language at Kings College London. She is author of Jonson, Horace and the Classical Tradition (2010) and editor of Neo-Latin Literature (2014).

George Herbert was born in 1593 and died at the age of thirty-nine in 1633, before the clouds of civil war gathered. He showed worldly ambition and seemed sure of high public office and a career at court, but then for a time 'lost himself in a humble way', devoting himself to the restoration of a church and then to his parish of Bemerton, three miles from Salisbury. When in the year of his death his friend Nicholas Ferrar published Herbert's poems under the title The Temple, his fame was quickly established. 
 
John Drury is Chaplain and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His books include The Burning Bush (1990), Painting the Word (1999), and, most recently, Music at Midnight, the culmination of a lifetime's interest in Herbert. 
 
Victoria Moul is Lecturer in Latin Literature and Language at Kings College London. She is author of Jonson, Horace and the Classical Tradition (2010) and editor of Neo-Latin Literature (2014).

The Complete English Poems

George Herbert combined the intellectual and the spiritual, the humble and the divine, to create some of the most moving devotional poetry in the English language. His deceptively simple verse uses the ingenious arguments typical of seventeenth-century 'metaphysical' poets, and unusual imagery drawn from musical structures, the natural world and domestic activity to explore a mosaic of Biblical themes. From the wit and wordplay of 'The Pulley' and the formal experimentation of 'Easter Wings' and 'Paradise', to the intense, highly personal relationship between man and God portrayed in 'The Collar' and 'Redemption', the works collected here show the transcendental power of divine love.

Poems from the great spiritual English poet, George Herbert

George Herbert was born in 1593. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was appointed Reader in Rhetoric in 1618, and PUblic Orator in 1620. Though he seemed destined for a great public career, attracting the attention of influential patrons, including King James I. However, when his patrons died, Herbert resigned from parliament and took holy orders in 1626, becoming rector of a tiny parish on Salisbury Plain. He died in 1633. 
 
 
John Tobin is currently a Professor of English Literature at the University of Massachusetts. he has published widely on the sources of Renaissance poetry.

Herbert Poems

Herbert experimented brilliantly with a remarkable variety of forms, from hymns and sonnets to "pattern poems," the shape of which reveal their subjects. Such technical agility never seems ostentatious, however, for precision of language and expression of genuine feeling were the primary concerns of this poet who admonished his readers to "dare to be true." An Anglican priest who took his calling with deep seriousness, he brought to his work a religious reverence richly allied with a playful wit and with literary and musical gifts of the highest order. His best-loved poems, from "The Collar" and "Jordan" to "The Altar" and "Easter Wings," achieve a perfection of form and feeling, a rare luminosity, and a timeless metaphysical grandeur.

George Herbert (1593-1633) has come to be one of the most admired of the metaphysical poets. Though a profoundly religious poet, even secular readers respond to his quiet intensity and exuberant inventiveness, which are amply showcased in this selection.

The Complete English Works

An entirely new edition of Herbert's collected poems with nots, chronology and introduction by the distinguised scholar Anne Pasternak Slater, this volume is designed to complement the editions of Marvell, Donne and Milton already published by the Everyman's Library. This volume is ideal for students and offers the best text available.

George Herbert

A collectible new Penguin Classics series: stunning, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets, which present each poet's most famous book of verse as it was originally published. Designed by the acclaimed Coralie Bickford-Smith and beautifully set, these slim, A format volumes are the ultimate gift editions for poetry lovers. 
 
On his deathbed George Herbert entrusted the manuscript of The Temple to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, asking him to publish it if he thought it was worthy. Herbert died in 1633 and the collection was published the same year to great acclaim, subsequently becoming one of the best-loved collections in the English language. The Temple is an astounding collection of verse poems: an extended meditation on man's relationship to God that is characterised by Herbert's clarity and directness of style. It includes such favourites as 'The Collar', 'The Pearl' and 'Love', with its beautiful opening lines: 'Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, / Guilty of dust and sin'.

George Herbert

The Temple

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