THE WORKS OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON, Poet Laureate

With an engraved portrait frontispiece of Tennyson after J. Mayall. 8vo, beautifully bound in full dark-brown morocco, the spine with raised bands gilt ruled, separating compartments elaborately decorated with fully tooled panels incorporating central tools gilt, lettered in gilt in one compartment, the covers with very fine gilt tooling incorporating dense and wide floral borders surrounded by multiple gilt fillet lines, the turnovers gilt rolled, marbled end-leaves, all edges gilt, a very handsome binding indeed. viii, 900 + (2) Index and colophon pp. A very fine copy, beautifully preserved and especially handsome.

Edizione: beautifully bound and a very fine collection of the poet's work. one of the great poets of his time. tennyson was made poet laureate in succession to wordsworth in 1850. he was held in the highest regard by victoria and albert. all of his great works are included here, including the “idylls” and the “charge of the light brigade”. tennyson was the first to be raised to a british peerage for his writing. he is still today one of the most popular british poets.<br> in writing tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. the 'idylls' for instance and the related poems were based on the arthurian legends, and retell the story of king arthur, his knights, his love for guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him in blank verse. the dramatic narratives are not an epic either in structure or tone, but derive elegiac sadness in the style of the idylls of theocritus. 'idylls of the king' is often read as an allegory of the societal conflicts in britain during the mid-victorian era.