George Meredith, Modern Love and Poems of the
English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads
Anniversary edition edited by Rebecca N. Mitchell and
Criscillia Benford
Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside occupies a distinctive and somewhat notorious place within George Meredith’s already unique body of work. Modern Love is now best known for the emotionally intense sonnet cycle which Meredith’s own contemporaries dismissed as scandalously confessional and indiscreet. While individual sonnets from the work have been anthologized, the complete cycle is rarely included, and the original edition has not been reprinted since its first appearance in 1862. This edition restores the original publication and supplements it with a range of accompanying materials that will reintroduce Meredith’s astonishing collection of poetry to a new generation of readers.
“This complex, avant-garde Victorian poet comes into his own in this outstanding edition. Meredith's provocative experiments, prismatic ironies and shifting perspectives dazzle anew here, with the poems published alongside ‘Modern Love,’ plus contemporary reviews, cultural documents of poetics, sexuality and the sensoria.”—Isobel Armstrong, University of London
Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside occupies a distinctive and somewhat notorious place within George Meredith’s already unique body of work. Modern Love is now best known for the emotionally intense sonnet cycle which Meredith’s own contemporaries dismissed as scandalously confessional and indiscreet. While individual sonnets from the work have been anthologized, the complete cycle is rarely included, and the original edition has not been reprinted since its first appearance in 1862. This edition restores the original publication and supplements it with a range of accompanying materials that will reintroduce Meredith’s astonishing collection of poetry to a new generation of readers.
“This complex, avant-garde Victorian poet comes into his own in this outstanding edition. Meredith's provocative experiments, prismatic ironies and shifting perspectives dazzle anew here, with the poems published alongside ‘Modern Love,’ plus contemporary reviews, cultural documents of poetics, sexuality and the sensoria.”—Isobel Armstrong, University of London
"One hundred fifty years have passed since George
Meredith’s extraordinarily bold ‘Modern Love’ struck Richard Holt Hutton in the Spectator as
nothing less than ‘Modern Lust.’ In this finely prepared edition, Rebecca N.
Mitchell and Criscillia Benford draw detailed attention to one of Victorian
Britain’s greatest poems on sexual desire. This outstanding edition enables us
to see why Meredith, a unique writer whose formidable demands too often account
for his unjustifiable neglect, deserves renewed critical attention.”—Joseph
Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles
“Rebecca Mitchell and Criscillia Benford’s important edition
opens new possibilities in scholarship and classrooms by allowing readers to
access Meredith’s vibrant poetry in its cultural, publishing, and visual
contexts.”—Linda K. Hughes, author of The
Cambridge Introduction to Victorian Poetry
Purchase at Yale Press or on Amazon.
ISBN: 978-0300173178
