The Golden Treasury: The Best of Classic English Verse

by Francis Turner Palgrave (Contributor)

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

The Golden Treasury is one of the best loved anthologies of English poetry ever published. The book was meticulously compiled by poet and scholar, Francis Turner Palgrave, in collaboration with Alfred Tennyson, who was then poet laureate. It’s arranged chronologically into four books which each celebrate a different era in the evolution of English poetry. All the greats are here from Shakespeare and Milton, Marvell and Pope, Wordsworth and Keats. First published in 1861 it became the standard anthology for over 100 years.

This Macmillan Collector’s Library edition includes a foreword by poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and is published to mark Macmillan’s 175th anniversary.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Anthologies, Reference, Poetry Plays, Literature

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1861

About the author

Not the same as Francis Palgrave or Francis Milnes Temple Palgrave

a British critic, anthologist and poet.

Reviews

[Nat K]

A gorgeous collection of poetry across the ages. Impossible to "rate" due to the variance of poetic styles and writers. Some are absolute standouts. It is beautiful.

Thank you Lorraine! What a delightful surprise, this book is stunning 🌷 I will treasure it.

[Amit Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that everyone should keep. It will let you explore some of the great poems of all time. Whewhenver you turn the pages of the book you will find something new from an extraordinary poet.

[Loretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book’s title page has the words “Selected From the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language”. I’d have to agree. There were many poets in this book that I’ve never heard about such as Edmund Waller, Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvell, to name a few, while others I did such as John Milton, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poetry within the pages were definitely song like and lyrical, with a definite spiritually about them.

This was a very enjoyable book of poetry and one that I may pick up again, and again. Five big ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️‘s.

[Alok Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a poet myself, I love reading poetry and poets of different centuries. However, whenever I have the chance, I do take a look randomly and I do find something new every time in the pages of this book... this indeed is a treasury which will keep you busy gleaning the pieces...
A must have for the poets; a must have for the students; a must have for anyone who wants a little peace today!

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My own copy is a well worn red hardcover published in the 1940's, bearing my first scribbles over the drawings. It is the first book I remember in my life, hence the nostalgic 5 star rating. I drew in it as a toddler and haltingly made out words as I learned them (I was a freakishly early reader, words seemed my natural place on this earth and gave me great solace. It was therefore a shock to find myself in postwar Japan at age 6, unable to even understand what the symbols..apparently letters...were).
As a 10 year old I memorized most of my favorites, and as a 13 year old treated my mirror to dramatic recitations of the longer, more poignant poems. And I made the book an oracle of love, choosing poems by random number to determine if the freckled face kid who was still shorter than I returned my great passion. Since lots of the poems have to do with love, well, sure he did.

It was good training for a poet, if peculiar, and I'd gladly place Palgrave in the library of any home with curious, quirky, poets to be growing up in it.

[Katja Labonté · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars. I really enjoyed this compilation. I’ve never yet read a poetry book arranged by date, so this was really fun & instructing! I enjoyed seeing how styles changed in time & also how different poets at the same time wrote differently but similar. I got very familiar with certain authors & really enjoy that... This book made me appreciate Shakespeare, Wordsworth, & Keats a lot more than I did before! The poems here are really well chosen too. I don’t agree with or like all of them, but for the most part they’re beautiful, well written, & worth reading.

[Anca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me 4 years to finish. The "fault", if any is to be ascribed, is mine: my ability to consume long lyrical passages is underdeveloped. One big surprise, for me, was the poetry of Wordsworth and how much I preferred him to the more "cool" Lord Byron.
Regarding the edition, if you're reading the Gutenberg version there are some useful indexes and notes at the end that are in no way signaled through the book (o only found them at the end; would have been useful)

[busé]

bunu okuduğum için kendimi otomatik olarak ell mezunu sayıyorum tşk

[Dona's Books]

Currently Reading

Preread Notes:

I have no idea how I ended up with this thick volume of Victorian poetry edited by Francis Turner Palgrave at the turn of the twentieth century. I didn't think I would actually like it when I pulled it off my shelf, as I'm a huge contemporary poetry fan and sometimes older poetry is too stylized for my tastes. But these poems, which Palgrave claims are the best of Victorian poetry, truly are great to read. I'm especially enjoying the wide range of offerings from Shakespeare's sonnets and other structured poems.

This volume of poetry is very thick and I recommend anyone who wants to read it to access it from tour local library or online. The weight of this anthology could be discouraging!

Part of my kill-my-tbr project, in which I'm reading all my physical, unread books, which number around one thousand!

Final Review to come:

quotation p13

Review and Recommendations:

Quotation p105

Reading Notes:

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. I love how I'm being educated about form as I read and look up the poems for more details. So many different kinds of sonnets!

2.

3.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1.

2.

3.

Rating:
Recommend?
Finished:
Format:
Read this book if you like:
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My Favorite Poems:

1. "The Noble Nature" p68 by B. Jonson
2.
3.
4.
5.

I have a paperback copy of Palgrave's Golden Treasury, edited by Francis Turner Palgrave. All views are mine.
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[Lisa of Troy]

Annotated Book in F. Scott Fitzgerald's College of One

A Book Owned by F. Scott Fitzgerald: https://static-prod.lib.princeton.edu...

[Jerry Brabenec · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most profound reading experiences of my life even if much of it was during idle moments sitting in a taxicab waiting for an order.

Our longtime neighbor and friend Ursula was probably the greatest lover of books I ever met. Gracious and friendly, frank and unpretentious, she read constantly and widely right up until she passed away at 97. In her retirement she worked part time for close to 20 years at the University of Michigan Conservation and Book Repair Lab.

The copy of "A Golden Treasury of English Verse" I read was Ursula's and she signed it in 1939.

I've paid rather fitful attention to poetry over the years, and mostly read newer stuff. This book was my introduction to Wordsworth and Shelley. Shelley's "The Flight of Love" is extraordinary, using an eagle's nest as a metaphor for love, which the stronger eagle abandons first, leaving the weaker alone in the tattered, storm tossed nest. The rhyme and meter of Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" bring music to the comforting words of maturity and experience. Shelley's work is full of vivid imagery and he died young, Wordsworth had a long career and his voice is plainspoken and frank.

The relative brevity of many poems is very attractive - profound ideas and emotions are encapsulated in a page or two of text, 5 or 10 minutes of reading and reflecting. The varieties of rhyme and meter lend all sorts of effects to the text and make the reader want to read aloud, which I sometimes did sitting alone in the taxi. This is the first poetry anthology I ever plowed through cover to cover and it was very rewarding. I'll try to do it more. I'd love some recommendations.

Our scanner is down but I will update this review with some of the illustrations, which are lovely art deco etchings or woodcuts.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

How could one not give five stars to a collection as comprehensive as this? OK, I'd have left out Swinburne and added some more of the Metaphysical poets, but this pocket-sized volume contains worlds.

[Hirdesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book.
Which comprises of huge no. of poem from Greatest poets ever.
The idle tears and My love- Best poems of sadness and love.It posses no.of Ode's by Keats and Wordsworth.
I just love it.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have several editions of this anthology. It is my favorite poetry anthology.

[María Eugenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta recopilación está dividida en 4 partes, según la introducción: "The poems have been therefore distributed into Books corresponding, Book First to the ninety years closing about 1616, Second thence to 1700, Third to 1800, Fourth to the half century just ended. Or, looking at the poets who more or less give each portion its distinctive character, they might be called the Books of Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and Wordsworth."
Pues bien, el libro 1 (lleno de Shakespeare) y el libro 4 (con Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron) me gustaron mucho... pero los dos del medio se me atragantaron bastante. 😅

[Sampriti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that you never really finish reading. It must have been an immensely handy book in the pre-internet era. I bought a cheap second hand copy of it back in 2016, almost immediately regretting the frugal purchase. However, the number of times I had to turn the pages of this book over the years surpasses the literal amount I bought it for. As a condensed collection of poems and poetic extracts drawn from British Literature, the book not only journals the evolution of poetry across the timeline but also provides a bird's eye view of the cannon and its exclusions.

[abril ☀️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

és una antologia preciosa dividida en 4 parts en què podem veure no només una gran quantitat de poemes, sinó també una varietat enorme de poetes.

[Devin L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful anthology! I keep it on my desk to reference

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard of this venerable anthology soon after entering college and reading that Robert Frost generally had a copy in his pocket during his stay in England. I’ve owned copies of it off an on for decades but decided a while back to read it from cover to cover for once, rather than simply dip into it. I did this in two stages. First, with a free download of the original on my Kindle, where it was a handy companion for trips. Then, to finish it, I read the supplementary Book Five, added in 1964, to cover poets from the previous hundred years; Palgrave’s original selection included no poets still living when it was first published in 1861. This additional book was more than two-thirds as bulky as the first four books combined. This may reflect the difficulty of choosing among poems from the recent past: should one attempt to select the best? Should one aim to find the most representative or famous?
The first four books bear the stamp of the personality of Palgrave. This sets it apart from many anthologies, the product of editorial teams and aimed for use as textbooks in university courses. No doubt Palgrave discussed his selections with his close friend Tennyson (dedicatee of the first edition) and others, but these are his choices. The result, if you’re at all in tune with his sympathies, is a handy compendium. For the most part, Palgrave limits himself to lyrical poems, although he admits that a few of his choices could also be grouped among narrative or dramatic poetry.
The four books cover epochs, for which Palgrave wisely avoids assigning names such as “the Elizabethan era” or “the Romantic era.” Within each book, though, the order is only roughly chronological, nor does he print the poems by a given author consecutively. Instead, he groups poems dealing with various themes, such as death, childhood, or romantic love. This gives one the feel of a conversation between the poets.
The fifth book, on the other hand, selected by John Press, orders the poems as mini-anthologies of the authors collected, chronologically according to the year of birth. He does have one thing in common with Palgrave though: the authors he selects are overwhelmingly male. I did a quick count of authors represented, and from over two hundred, I only spotted seven women (Press would have included one more, Kathleen Raine, but was denied permission). Of course, there are nine poems of unknown authorship, so it’s possible there are some by the most prolific poetess of history (according to Virginia Woolf), Anonymous.
The authors are all British, although Press stretches the criterium both ways; he includes both T. S. Eliot, an American who took on British citizenship, and W. H. Auden, an Englishman with an American passport.
So what did I learn from reading the entire collection in sequence? What follows is strictly personal opinion. I already knew Shakespeare was great. No surprise there, but that Marlowe fellow wasn’t so bad either. My close attention to Milton was rewarded, especially in “Il Penseroso,” a seriously great poem. Among the Romantics, I found I don’t care if I ever read another poem by Walter Scott. I liked Shelley more than Keats and much more than Byron; until now, I had always thought of them as a single, three-headed poetic hydra. Wordsworth is generously represented, too much so for the sake of his reputation — there’s a lot of chaff there. Ditto for Tennyson. I get it — he’s a master of the depiction of nature, but to what purpose? Browning is a different matter. There’s something strange about his poems; I’m curious to continue exploring.
Among the moderns: Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot, and Auden have long been personal favorites, but until now I hadn’t paid any attention to the poems of Thomas Hardy, in spite of the fact that he’s one of my favorite novelists (and the urging of one of my best friends, whose taste I trust). The selection included here is seriously good — right up there with Robert Graves.
Another benefit of reading a well-selected anthology is the discovery of writers I hadn’t heard of before. I’ve noted several for further study.
The time draws close when I will have to cull my library to fit in a smaller space, but I expect this book, with its myriad explorations of the intersection of world and word, will make the cut even when I’m down to one small bookcase.

[Mike Futcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A seminal anthology from Francis Turner Palgrave becomes a middling lyric-dump when John Press adds his own contributions. Originally published in 1861 with an updated version a few decades later, Palgrave's lean selections, totalling about three hundred pages in my Oxford University Press edition, promise and provide the 'best lyrical poems in the English language'. Alongside obvious but necessary choices like Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, Palgrave includes a number of more obscure but enjoyable poems, all annotated with unobtrusive endnotes and commentary. Beautifully sequenced, it is a compelling read for those looking to examine the collective footprint of British poets before Tennyson.

However, the final two segments of the Golden Treasury, added by John Press in 1964 and 1994, more than double the length of the book without adding comparable value. Press does add some great new poets who would've been worthy of the original Treasury had they lived then, such as Yeats and Eliot, along with Tennyson (who Palgrave had omitted, with the poet's agreement, on the grounds of personal and professional friendship). But, fatally, Press is much less discerning than Palgrave in his selections. It would be hard to argue credibly that the English language has provided as many great poets since the start of the 20th century as it had in the previous four centuries, especially as poetry has become a relegated medium, but even if you were amenable to this implicit argument, Press' selections do little to win you over. Many are milquetoast pieces that remain deservedly obscure, particularly among the contemporary selections, and of those stellar poets that are included, the examples chosen from their work are underwhelming (Kipling is allowed only two poems, neither of which rank among his best, while Wilfred Owen's larger selection still lacks 'Dulce et Decorum Est'). The less said about many of the post-war poets, the better. Under Press, this compendium is no longer 'The Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language', as Palgrave's original subtitle put it, and this remit is further tarnished by Press' omission of any English-language poets from America, such as Robert Frost.

Rather than enlightening us with a lean selection comprising the best of the best, Press adds too much bronze and tin to Palgrave's golden treasury. In his original commentary, discussing 18th century poets like Burns and Gray, Palgrave writes that poetry was "at this as at all times… a more or less unconscious mirror of the genius of the age" (pg. 649). This is sadly no longer true of poetry, unless you take the somewhat contrary reasoning that Press' mild selections often mirror the uncomfortable reality that our own age is so lacking in poetic genius.

[Anima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it so many time only to discover more and more beauty and meanings.It is indeed a wonderful collection of poems! Thank you Hirdesh for recommending this book to me. I love it.

W. Wordsworth
Ode on Intimations of Immortality
from Recollections of Early Childhood

"THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath pass’d away a glory from the earth.
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;—
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong........

.....
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

W. Wordsworth
“The world is too much with us”

"THE World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather’d now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,—
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn."

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Francis Turner Palgrave was a former poetry professor who first published his Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics in 1861. This book collects classic poetry from Burns and Yeats to Wordsworth.

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite and first collection of English poetry ever!

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best poetry in English.

[Jennifer Sahlstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

favorite, favorite, favorite.

[Moushmi Radhanpara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books which I bought just because I had to. The story goes something like this. I was finding a particular book for my syllabus and after a long stroll down College Street I landed upon this miniature old book at a very nominal cost. The shopkeeper told me it had all the poetries that I was looking for and a lot many that I might like. I never got to the other lot many. After graduating I kept it aside and never looked on it until now. My love for poetry was only new then and I was still basking in the romantics like Shelley and Wordsworth. It was only over the years that I realised that poetry was not just romantic, it was beautiful in all its modernity, classics, old age, natural rhythm and abstract nature.

A few months ago I started reading through this book again, without skipping to the good parts and I must admit that I loved them from old age to modern poets and from Sydney to Whitman. Obviously not every piece was my cup of tea but it was worth it to delve into the old smell of tattered words and syllables. My only regret is this does not have as many women poets as I might have liked. Nonetheless, poetry is still always a soothing song for me.

[Eileen Maes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad collection. It’s provided me with a delightful introduction to Lord Byron (I like his poetry a lot more than expected) and Lord Tennyson, and a nice overview of Shakespeare. Though I am somewhat confused at how one can feature Andrew Marvell and not include his magnus opus ‘The Definition of Love’.

Considering the year it was published (1944), the collection also highlights an impressive volume of female poets - it features Browning, George Eliot (Mary Ann Cross), Rossetti and more, but WHERE is Dickinson and Philips? Startling omissions.

Otherwise it’s filled with a lot of long, dramatic odes to England, its brave soldiers, its beautiful highlands, and its glorious Empire - some of it is nice, but a lot of it is rubbish. Unfortunately I wouldn’t say this collection is a definitive list of the best lyrical poems in the English language (circa 1944), but I have found some new favourites: All for Love by Byron, Past and Present by T. Hood, The Grave of Love by T.L. Peacock, The Garden of Prosperine by Swinburne, to name a few…

[Ravi Kumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know any fellow of mine who has not kept this book in his or her bookshelf. Every aspirant of English literature is well acquainted with this treasury. Selected poems of authors of different ages have been compiled. At the same, I don't know why some authors have been omitted. is there any political motive behind it or something else? There are many great poets who have not been given the place here. This is a prescribed collection of poetry in universities and colleges.
This is a very important book for academic purposes. Here readers can access most of the poems which have been prescribed in the BA or MA Programme in English literature.
I recommend this book to students and teachers who love to read poems.

[E A M Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book as long as I can remember and have often dipped into it. This time I read it from beginning to end and found it a completely different reading experience.
There are many poems I'd never read before (some of them quite boring to be honest), and there are also many poets, particularly 19th century ones, that I know nothing about and who seem to have dropped out of the general consciousness.
The book is arranged in time order with sub-arranging in subject. This makes one aware of the changes in language and form over the centuries. Subject doesn't change so much: love, death, home, nature are preoccupations of all times.

[O.Temple · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for a pretty book, this addition, edited by Francis Turner Palgrave and Carol Ann Duffy, is something every avid reader should have in their collection. I can turn to any page and find myself delighted and reminded of why I love poetry.
I love the pocket-hand size of this book, it's lovingly made with an elegant, gold-metallic illustration on a deep blue velvet cover, and gold-edged pages.
It's the stuff of childhood dreams!