The story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning has become part of literary mythology - the invalid kept locked up in Wimpole Street by a tyrannical father until her elopement and flight to Italy at the age of forty. In this important biography, Margaret Forster challenges the legend, introducing us to another Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one who was no frail and terrified daughter but a woman as strong and determined as her father and responsible in a large part for her own incarceration.

Compact anthology features many of the best works by 59 poets writing in English, among them Edmund Spenser, Christina Rossetti, John Milton, Robert Burns, and William Blake.

Though left uncompleted, “Kubla Khan” is one of the most famous examples of Romantic era poetry. In it, Samuel Coleridge provides a stunning and detailed example of the power of the poet’s imagination through his whimsical description of Xanadu, the capital city of Kublai Khan’s empire. Samuel Coleridge penned “Kubla Khan” after waking up from an opium-induced dream in which he experienced and imagined the realities of the great Mongol ruler’s capital city. Coleridge began writing what he remembered of his dream immediately upon waking from it, and intended to write two to three hundred lines. However, Coleridge was interrupted soon after and, his memory of the dream dimming, was ultimately unable to complete the poem. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

An elderly black woman who lives out in the country makes the long and arduous journey into town, as she has done many times in the past.