THE POETIC AND DRAMATIC WORKS OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON [Poet Laureate] by Tennyson Alfred Lord - 1898

Boston and New York: The Riverside Press, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898. The Cambridge Edition. With an engraved photogravure frontispiece of Tennyson and an engraved title-page with a scene of the house on Isle of Wight. 8vo, very handsomely bound in three-quarter dark-blue crushed morocco over marbled boards; the covers with gilt rules at the borders and the spine finely gilt decorated in panel designs in compartments separated by raised bands gilt ruled; lettered in gilt in two compartments, t.e.g. xvii, 887 pp. A fine copy, beautifully preserved with only the barest evidence of age. FIRST OF THE EDITION. ONE OF THE GREAT POETS OF HIS TIME. Tennyson was made Poet Laureate in succession to Wordsworth in 1850. He was held in the highest regard by Victoria and Albert. All of his great works are included here, including the “Idylls of the King” and the “Charge of the Light Brigade”. This handsome publication was produced just after the poet's passing. Tennyson was the first to be raised to a British peerage for his writing. He is still today one of the most popular British poets.
In writing Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. He remains one of the most popular British poets. The 'Idylls' were based on the Arthurian legends, and retell the story of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him in blank verse. The dramatic narratives are not an epic either in structure or tone, but derive elegiac sadness in the style of the idylls of Theocritus. 'Idylls of the King' is often read as an allegory of the societal conflicts in Britain during the mid-Victorian era.