If one had to say where can you find in fewer than 1,000 pages the best of English poetry, here it is. Daily Telegraph

`by far the most balanced and most wide-ranging [anthology] we have, offering superlative value to almost every taste' The Times

`Dame Helen has seen through this enormous task with affection, wit and wonderful thoroughness.' Times Literary Supplement

`Her knowledge of English poetry is both extensive and intensive; her critical standards are eminently worthy of respect...The reading public has every reason to be grateful to her.' Critical Quarterly

`The book remains a continuous and rewarding pleasure...It is a cause of wonder how easily poems of the recent past fit with those written centuries ago without jarring or disturbance.' New York Times

A superior collection, in my mind, to the original Oxford Book of English Verse edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. ( )

Not a revision of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's classic selection, but a new anthology. The editor explains in her Preface why she deliberately did not include American poets, with the one exception of Ezra Pound.