George Crabbe – författare

Rooted in the Suffolk landscape of his youth, the poetry of George Crabbe is some of the most distinctive and original of the early nineteenth century, exploring ordinary, often harsh working lives in realistic, subtle language. This selection contains the best of Crabbe's poetry from throughout his career, including 'Peter Grimes' from The Borough, the powerful 'Sir Eustace Grey', the complete Tales of 1812 and the remarkable late work 'The Family of Love'. Depicting people struggling against the undertow of the past and against their own frailties, these are works of great generosity and human sympathy. This Penguin Classics volume is edited with an introduction and notes by Gavin Edwards.George Crabbe was born in 1754 in Suffolk. The son of a collector of salt-duties, he spent a period of apprenticeship and unsuccessful practice as an apothecary and surgeon before moving to London to make his way as a writer. Struggling with destitution, he was befriended by Edmund Burke, who helped him first to get his work published and then to embark on a career in the church. His religious career culminated in his appointment as Rector of Trowbridge in Wiltshire, where he died in 1832.Gavin Edwards is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of South Wales. He is the author of George Crabbe's Poetry on Border Land (1990) and Narrative Order 1789-1819: Life and Story in an Age of Revolution (2005).

George Crabbe (1754-1832) was acclaimed by his contemporaries as a major poet. The leading reviewer of the day, Francis Jeffrey, paid tribute to his powerful originality. Byron pronounced him 'Though Nature's sternest Painter, yet the best'. Sir Walter Scott, and Jane Austen, who declared that she would have married him, were among his many admirers. In our own time both critics and poets have praised his penetrating insights into human motivation, his realism, and his unique use of landscape as a setting for his poems and verse tales; and he is well known as the author of Peter Grimes, on which Benjamin Britten based his opera. Yet there has not been a collected edition of his verse since A.W. Ward's, some eighty years ago.The present edition draws on much recently discovered manuscript material in this country and in the USA, including a finished manuscript, with proofs, of Tales of the Hall, and manuscripts of four unpublished tales and of a number of shorter poems. Close attention has been paid to the evolution of the text from the rough pencil drafts in Crabbe's notebooks to the final version on the printed page. An extensive Commentary relates both to the literary context and to Crabbe's many observations on the social scene of his day.

A scholarly edition of the works of George Crabbe. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Although George Crabbe (1754-1832) was acclaimed by his contemporaries--receiving high praise from Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and Jane Austen, among others--there has not been a collected edition of his verse since A.W. Ward's, some eighty years ago. The present edition draws on much recently discovered manuscript material from America and Britain, including a finished manuscript (with proofs) of Tales of the Hall, and manuscripts of four unpublished tales and of a number of shorter poems. Close attention has been paid to the evolution of the text from the rough pencil drafts in Crabbe's notebooks to the final version in print. An extensive commentary relates both to the literary context and to Crabbe's many observations on the social scene of his day.

This is the first collected edition of the verse for some eighty years. The editors use much recently discovered manuscript material, and there is extensive commentary.

"Though nature's sternest painter yet the best" ByronGeorge Crabbe (1754-1832) arrived late on the Augustan scene. Born in the same decade as Burns and Blake, he outlived Keats by more than ten years. His father was a warehouse-keeper in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Schooled in Bungay and Stowmarket, he was apprenticed to an apothecary. In 1779 he went to London as a literary adventurer, arriving without introductions. Edmund Burke became his patron and transformed his fortunes. The Village (1783),and after a silence The Parish Register (1807), The Borough (1810) and Tales (1812), his main works followed.Crabbe wanted his readers to feel his writing - accounts of rural and provincial life, of individuals and communities, of landscapes - not only as narrative but in circumstantial detail - some of it harsh and shocking. Peter Grimes is his most famous character, one whom Benjamin Britten found irresistible. 'It is worth registering from the outset,' Jem Poster says, 'the enduring intimacy of Crabbe's contact with the world, the sheer physicality of his grasp of things: the strengths of his poetry are more easily understood if we can visualise him actually grubbing at the slimy roots of the marshplants he so vividly described, delivering a neighbour's child, or assisting his father by piling butter-casks in a quayside warehouse'.