Books by James Fenton

The author, a foreign correspondent, describes his experiences in Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Korea.

By selecting one hundred plants he would choose to grow from seed, including clinging vines, colorful flowers, and tropical species, the author shows both novice and expert gardeners alike how to think their way to creating a visually stunning garden. Reprint.

James Fenton provides a thorough grounding in English poetry, which he claims began in Tudor times, explicating the sonnet, illuminating free verse, describing the form and effects of iambic pentameter and its variations, and much more.

This volume of libretti marks new work--and new terrain--for James Fenton. Commissioned by companies in New York and England, these musical pieces make the most of the poet's poignant, witty, and characteristically lyrical verse. Whether evoking modern-day London on the edge of apocalypse in THE LOVE BOMB, a timeless land beyond the moon in this version of Salman Rushdie's children's novel HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES, or ancient Jerusalem in his stirring oratorio THE FALL OF JERUSALEM, which was composed to mark the millennium, Fenton's lucid storytelling and stylish wordplay bring these pieces vividly to life--with equal power in performance or on the page.

In these lectures many of which appeared in THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS Fenton makes sense of the last century in poetry, and explores its antecedents and its legacies, with the lucidity, wit, and gusto that have made his criticism famous.

Though some of his earlier work is notably absent (e.g., "A Staffordshire Murderer"), this selection of poetry by the estimable critic and writer James Fenton shows the austere power of his early work and the vaguely threatening love of his more recent songs and libretti, including the entirety of THE LOVE BOMB, Fenton's opera about a woman who leaves her husband for a cult.

A selection of poems by DH Lawrence selected by James Fenton.

James Fenton is unique among contemporary writers in having achieved equal distinction as a poet and -- in his reportage and criticism -- as a master of trenchant prose. What is more, he has shown himself a devoted critic of both American and British modern poetry, an explainer of each tradition to the other and to itself. In these lectures, delivered at Oxford (where he succeeded Seamus Heaney as Professor of Poetry from 1994 to 1999), Fenton moves easily from Philip Larkin's laments for the British Empire, to Heaney's uneasy rebellion against it, to Robert Frost's celebrations of American conquest; from W. H. Auden on Shakespeare's homoeroticism to the vexed "feminism" of Elizabeth Bishop; from Wilfred Owen's juvenilia to Marianne Moore's youthful agitation for women's suffrage.
In these lectures -- many of which appeared in The New York Review of Books -- Fenton makes sense of the last century in poetry, and explores its antecedents and its legacies, with the lucidity, wit, and gusto that have made his criticism famous.

The lectures collected here, many of which were previously published in the New York Review of Books, were originally presented at Oxford University, where Fenton, a critic and poet, was a Distinguished Professor of Poetry from 1994 through 1999. The subject matter is wide ranging, including discussions of the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Marianne Moore, Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney, and several others.