AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: Byron: Poetical Works by George Gordon Byron, Baron Byron, Frederick Page, John Jump ISBN: 0-19-281068-5 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1980 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Byron The king
Comment: Used to have to sit in the library and read the referance copy of this volume, because it contains some poems that i've never seen anywhere else.-Ok so theres no hard cover, but if your a young man or woman and you need this art NOW, than you can't lose. Great volume, just because it became available again!
I suppose if your a big shot, you can find a old hard cover through collectors.-but this should be read by younger Inspired readers, not old stoggy morons that have never tasted life, that only want it on there shelf to inflate there ego's, and prove they know something of classic poetry.

Rating: 3
Summary: Only regarding the edition itself!
Comment: Firstly, I must clarify my rating of this volume. Byron is my favorite of the English poets, surpassing Dryden, Pope, and all the rest. His works have the perfect combination of meter, content, and the malignantly dark atmosphere that I consider essential. Thus, I would hope that no one interprets my 3-star rating as a comment on the poet, or his works thereof.

As for this edition, however, the results are mixed. It is a heavy paperback, with a rather thick cover and pages, and is actually sewn. Unfortunately, the reason I know it is sewn is that the spine of my copy cracked severely, and I can see the threads (incidentally, this happened on the very first page of "The Corsair" - certainly because of the degree of use in that section of the book!). The book is printed in double columns, which serves to lessen the number of pages required (still over 900). However, in the poems which have somewhat longer lines than the others, this means that nearly every metrical "line" is split into two lines on the page (I am thinking specifically of "Childe Harold", "The Corsair" and "Lara" here, although this shows up in other places as well). This is, to say the least, distracting and detracts from the overall reading experience. The font is small, but not unreadably so (older or glasses-requiring readers will likely disagree). Lastly, if you are interested in a "critical" edition of Byron, this may not be the best choice: it includes notes that Byron himself wrote, but they are not particularly illuminating.

The works of Byron are themselves worth owning, without question. The question is if this edition is sufficient. It is complete, and is reasonably well bound. I haven't had a chance to look at the Penguin Classics edition of Byron, in two volumes, which I suspect is in single columns but may not be complete. The other alternative is to find an old edition, preferably one in a format large enough to permit double columns without causing lines to split. However, this is simply not feasible for the casual reader (it took me four months... to acquire such an edition, but it's very nice), and, as such, this edition will do; be aware that it does have its caveats.