The Poems

OXFORD EDITION

THE POEMS

OF

MATTHEW ARNOLD

1840-1867

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

A. T. QUILLER-COUCH

HENRY FROWDE

LONDON

1909

DESCRIPTION

(ii) + xxvii + 460 + (ii)

Book measures 190mm x 130mm approximately.

Bumpus Binding

Nicely bound by Bumpus in full light russet calf. Spine with five raised bands with title in gilt to compartment. Elaborate gilt inner dentelles. Portrait frontispiece engraving to title page verso. Light eggshell blue speckled paste-downs and end-papers. All page edges in gilt.

CONDITION

In overall good condition. The binding is firm. The boards are in good condition with the odd surface mark, some rubbing to corners and mild wear to front hinge. Rear board is partially sunned.

Internally the pages are generally clean throughout with just a very minor hint of light browning and the odd spot and foxing patch to end-papers and paste-downs. Small neat ink inscription to front end-paper dated Xmas 1912.

Overall, a nicely bound volume of Arnold's works in good condition.

Please always refer to photo images for a clearer indication of condition.

We are always happy to provide further photo images if required.

INTERESTING

Matthew Arnold (1822 to 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He was also an inspector of schools for thirty-five years, and supported the concept of state-regulated secondary education.

Arnold is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. Arnold was keenly aware of his place in poetry. In an 1869 letter to his mother, he wrote:

My poems represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day as people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it. It might be fairly urged that I have less poetical sentiment than Tennyson and less intellectual vigour and abundance than Browning; yet because I have perhaps more of a fusion of the two than either of them, and have more regularly applied that fusion to the main line of modern development, I am likely enough to have my turn as they have had theirs.