'If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it really as it was.' In the last of his major writings, Samuel Johnson looked back over the previous two centuries of English Literature in order to describe the personalities as well as the achievements of the leading English poets. The major Lives - of Milton, Dryden, Swift, and Pope - are memorable cameos of the life of writing in which Johnson is as attentive to human frailty as to literary prowess. The shorter Lives preserve some of Johnson's most piercing, critical judgements. Unsentimental, opinionated, and quotable, The Lives of the Poets continues to influence the reputations of the writers concerned. It is one of the greatest works of English criticism, but also one of the most humanly diverting. This selection of the Lives of ten of the most important poets draws its text from Roger Lonsdale's authoritative complete edition. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Small-time finance journalist Matthew Prior gave up his day-job and gambled everything on setting up a website offering financial advice ... in witty blank verse. Then he woke up one day in the middle of the worst crisis since the 30s with no business, a shedload of debt, a lot of guilt and a great deal of suspicion about his wife who spends her time flirting online with her childhood sweetheart - a real guy with a real, man's job. So when Matt's offered some high-grade dope, and finds he can sell a little bit of it on, he thinks that maybe this is where the future lies... As Matt battles to save his marriage, his children's future and his sanity too, The Financial Lives of the Poets becomes a hugely funny but heartfelt novel about how we can reach the edge of ruin - and pull back.

"A look into the life and poetry of E.E. Cummings."--From source other than the Library of Congress

Mary R. Lefkowitz has extensively revised and rewritten her classic study to introduce a new generation of students to the lives of the Greek poets. Thoroughly updated with references to the most recent scholarship, this second edition includes new material and fresh analysis of the ancient biographies of Greece's most famous poets. With little or no independent historical information to draw on, ancient writers searched for biographical data in the poets' own works and in comic poetry about them. Lefkowitz describes how biographical mythology was created and offers a sympathetic account of how individual biographers reconstructed the poets' lives. She argues that the life stories of Greek poets, even though primarily fictional, still merit close consideration, as they provide modern readers with insight into ancient notions about the creative process and the purpose of poetic composition.