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The Ode Less Travelled

  • Imprint: Arrow

  • ISBN: 9780099509349

  • Length: 384  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 24mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 266g

  • RRP: £9.99

The Ode Less Travelled

  • A guide to writing poetry

If you can speak and read English, you can write poetry.

The trick is knowing where to start. Stephen Fry, who has long written poems, and indeed has written long poems, for his own private pleasure, invites you to discover the incomparable delights of metre, rhyme and verse forms.

Whether you want to write a Petrarchan sonnet for your lover's birthday, an epithalamion for your sister's wedding or a villanelle excoriating the government's housing policy, The Ode Less Travelled will give you the tools and the confidence to do so.

Brimful of enjoyable exercises, witty insights and simple step-by-step advice, The Ode Less Travelled guides the reader towards mastery and confidence in the Mother of the Arts.

  • Imprint: Arrow

  • ISBN: 9780099509349

  • Length: 384  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 24mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 266g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • Fry's extraordinary book is an idiots' guide to the writing of poetry, a primer, a tutorial with funny turns, an earnest textbook... You can't but marvel at Fry's easy familiarity with the rictameter and the rondeau redoublé and applaud the energy of his evangelistic zeal

    Independent on Sunday

  • With his usual wit and occasional obscenity, he takes us through an array of metrical forms and poetic structures, talking to us like a cajoling hearty teacher

    Sunday Telegraph

  • Intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed

    Observer

  • A smart, sane and entertaining return to basics

    Daily Telegraph

  • Funny and instructive

    Spectator

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About the Author

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he co-wrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster, and was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. He has hosted over 180 episodes of QI, and has narrated all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the audiobook recordings. He is the bestselling author of four novels - The Liar, The Hippopotamus, Making History and The Stars' Tennis Balls - as well as three volumes of autobiography - Moab is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and More Fool Me. Mythos, Heroes and Troy, his retelling of the Greek myths, are all Sunday Times bestsellers.

Stephen Fry

Read more

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Extracts

Damian Bradfield and Stephen Fry: The internet has changed us

In this extract from The Trust Manifesto, author and WeTransfer co-founder Damian Bradfield speaks with Stephen Fry about how the internet has permanently transformed the way we experience the world.
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Extracts

Heroes by Stephen Fry

In this companion to his bestselling Mythos, Stephen Fry brilliantly retells the dramatic, funny, tragic and timeless tales of Greek heroes.
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Extracts

More Fool Me by Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry offers a vision of autobiographical hell from his latest memoir

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