These two volumes list late-and mid-Victorian poets, with brief biographical information and bibliographical details of published works. The major strength of the works is the 'discovery' of very many minor poets and their work, unrecorded elsewhere.

The meditations and songs of Frances Ridley Havergal have provided solace, comfort, and everlasting peace to thousands of souls. Her ministry in poetry and prose is ever being used by the Spirit of God to teach, comfort, exhort, and convict. All her poetry and prose is saturated with the living Word of God; it has a freshness and power which only the eternal dew of heavenly truth could impart. Frances always looked to the Lord for her messages before writing anything. On one occasion she wrote to her sister of her strong belief that, “If I am to write to any good, a great deal of living must go into a very little writing.” In an effort to preserve her prose for this generation, Opened Treasures was first published in 1962. “She yielded herself utterly to God. By virtue of this, her writings reached and moved a multitude of souls.”—T. H. Darlow

Daniel Karlin has selected poetry written and published during the reign of Queen Victoria, (1837-1901). Giving pride of place to Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Christina Rossetti, the volume offers generous selections from other major poets such asArnold, Emily Bronte, Hardy and Hopkins, and makes room for several poem-sequences in their entirety. It is wonderful, too, in its discovery and inclusion of eccentric, dissenting, un-Victorian voices, poets who squarely refuse to 'represent' their period. It also includes the work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Meredith, James Thomson and Augusta Webster.