Alfred Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria's favorite poet, commanded a wider readership than any other of his time. His ascendancy was neither the triumph of pure genius nor an accident of history: he skillfully crafted his own career and his relationships with his audience. Fame and recognition came, lavishly and in abundance, but the hunger for more never left him. Resolving never to be anything except 'a poet', he wore his hair long, smoked incessantly, and sported a cloak and wide-brimmed Spanish hat.Tennyson ranged widely in his poetry, turning his interests in geology, evolution and Arthurian legend into verse, but much of his work relates to his personal life. The poet who wrote The Lady of Shalott and The Charge of the Light Brigade has become a permanent part of our culture. This enjoyable and thoughtful new biography shows him as a Romantic as well as a Victorian, exploring both the poems and the pressures of his era, and the personal relationships that made the man.

Tennyson s central poem is presented with an extensive introduction that provides background information on the poet and poem as well as an overview of In Memoriam s formal and thematic peculiarities, including Tennyson s use of the stanza and the poem s rhyme scheme."

The Lady of Shalott is one of the best-loved poems in the English language. The tale of the mysterious, enigmatic Lady seems to captivate everyone's imagination. Over a century and a half after it was written, men still desire the Lady, and women identify with her. In this edition, the work is embellished by four Victorian illustrations.A new Introduction by Jocelyn Almond explores the poem's perennial appeal. For the first time, The Lady of Shalott has been typeset in the beautiful Doves Type of the early twentieth century, designed for the quality, hand-made editions of a private press. Doves Type was made in only one size, the size used in this book.

The poet's reputation has weathered even the most vitriolic attempts to discredit both the man and his writings; and as criticism of the late twentieth century demonstrates, Tennyson's claim to pre-eminence among the Victorians is now unchallenged."