Description
A wide-ranging and appealingly fairy-sized treasury of fantastical poems from across the centuries and around the world, in a gorgeously jacketed small hardcover
Fascination with fairies spans centuries and cultures. With ancient roots in pagan belief, fairies have long populated mythology, folklore, and oral and written poetry. They have seen repeated surges of renewed popularity from the Renaissance to the present fantasy-besotted moment.
Elves, changelings, mermaids, pixies, and sprites, England’s Queen Mab, France’s Morgana, Scandinavian nixies, and Irish banshees: these magical creatures are sometimes mischievous, sometimes dangerous, but always enchanting. This collection brings together a diverse array of literary fairies: here are Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Shakespeare’s Titania, and Keats’s “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” but also Arthur Rimbaud’s “Fairy,” Goethe’s “Erlking,” Claude McKay’s “Snow Fairy,” Denise Levertov’s “Elves,” Sylvia Plath’s “Lorelei,” Christopher Okigbo’s “Watermaid,” and Neil Gaiman’s “The Fairy Reel.”
Everyman’s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Lynne Greenberg
ENCHANTED PLACES
THOMAS DE ERCIDOUN fromBallad of Thomas the Rhymer
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE fromA Midsummer Night’s Dream
GERALD GRIFFIN HyBrasail – The Isle of the Blest
MICHAEL COIMN fromThe Lay of Oisn in the Land of Youth
SARA TEASDALE The Fary Forest
ARTHUR SYMONS In the Wood of Finvara
ANONYMOUS fromSir Orfeo
MICHAEL DRAYTON fromNymphidia: The Fairy Court
A. E. (GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL) The Well of All Healing
ROBERT SOUTHEY The Fountain of the Fairies
ANONYMOUS Lovely Lady
JAMES HOGG fromKilmeny
LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY The Voyagers
MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE St. Andrew’s
CATHALSEARCAIGH The Berry Hollow of Lag Na Smar
FAIRY FOLK
EDMUND SPENSER fromThe Faerie Queene
SIR WALTER SCOTT fromTam Lin
PAUL DUNBAR The Discovery
ANONYMOUS The Fairy Host
THOMAS BOYD To the Leann Sidhe
DENISE LEVERTOV The Elves
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE fromRomeo and Juliet
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY fromQueen Mab
VICTOR HUGO A Fairy
DORA SIGERSON SHORTER The Banshee
ANONYMOUS Vilas
JOSEPH CAMPBELL The Pca
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON fromIdylls of the King
WALLACE STEVENS The Dwarf
ARTHUR RIMBAUD The Fairy
CHARLOTTE DACRE Will O’ The Wisp
CLAUDE MCKAY The Snow Fairy
A. J. ODASSO Fairy Beekeeper
MERMAIDS AND WATERFOLK
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON The Sea-Fairies
HEINRICH HEINE The Loreley
SYLVIA PLATH Lorelei
CHRISTOPHER OKIGBO Watermaid
T. S. ELIOT fromThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
PABLO NERUDA Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks
ERIK JOHAN STAGNELIUS Ncken (The Nixie)
MARTIN OTT Return to Mermaid
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS fromA Vision of the Mermaids
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA La Sirena
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI A Sea-Spell
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER “Naiad, whose sliding lips were mine”
QUEER FAIRIES
MICHAEL FIELD (KATHERINE BRADLEY and EDITH COOPER) The Iris Was Yellow, The Moon Was Pale
LANGSTON HUGHES Caf 3 a.m.
CLAUDE MCKAY To O. E. A.
JOHN WIENERS To Charles on His Home
JAMES BROUGHTON only when i
OLIVER BAEZ BENDORF Rainwater From Certain Enchanted Streams
MICHAEL RUMAKER fromThe Fairies Are Dancing All Over the World
FAIRY MUSIC AND DANCE
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE fromA Midsummer Night’s Dream
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE fromThe Tempest
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE fromSongs of the Pixies
ANONYMOUS Cusheen Loo
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Elfenlied (Fairy Song)
EDUARD MRIKE Elfenlied (Fairy Song)
HENRY DAVID THOREAU Dong, Sounds the Brass in the East
NORA CHESSON HOPPER The Fairy Fiddler
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR The Corn-Stalk Fiddle
SU SHE Lyrics to the Tune “Fairy Grotto”
ANN RADCLIFFE fromThe Romance of the Forest
JOHN MILTON fromA Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH The Fary Chasm
MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN Fary Morris
SIMON STEWARD The Fairies Fegaries
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE Fairies
SIR WALTER SCOTT The Fairy Dance
NEIL GAIMAN The Faery Reel
FAIRY MISCHIEF AND MALEVOLENCE
THOMAS RAVENSCROFT The Fayries’ Daunce
LEIGH HUNT Song of Fairies Robbing Orchard
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM The Fairies
CICELY FOX SMITH Pixie-Led
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI fromGoblin Market
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Erlklnig (The Erl-King)
MATTHEW ARNOLD fromTristram and Iseult
ANONYMOUS Swedish Ballad: Sir Olof and the Fairies
SEDUCTIONS AND ABDUCTIONS
JOHN KEATS La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad
MARIE DE FRANCE fromSir Launfal
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS The Song of Wandering Aengus
WALTER DE LA MARE Happy, Happy It Is To Be
MOIREEN FOX CHEAVASA The Fairy Lover
ETHNA CARBERY The Love-Talker
DORA SIGERSON SHORTER The Wind on the Hills
SAMUEL LOVER The Haunted Spring
MARY C. G. BYRON The Fairy Thrall
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS The Stolen Child
JOHN ANSTER The Fairy Child
PATIENCE AGBABI Double
SEROJINI NAIDU Village-Song
CHARLOTTE MEW The Changeling
THEODORA GOSS The Changeling
FAIRY SPELLS AND CHARMS
ROBERT HERRICK The Night-Piece, to Julia
ANONYMOUS Gaelic Charm Against Fairy Influence
ANONYMOUS Song to Quell the Elf
THOMAS CAMPION Ayre XVIII
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN The Romance of the Fairy Cure
WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT fromThe Ordinary
MICHAEL DRAYTON fromNymphidia: The Fairy Court
BEN JONSON The Fairy Beam Upon You
ABSINTHE, THE GREEN FAIRY
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE The Poison
DELMIRA AGUSTINI Another Lineage
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE Rhenish Night
PAUL VALRY The Vain Dancers
CARL DANIEL FLLSTRM Absinthe
RAOUL PONCHON L’Absinthe
ANONYMOUS I Am the Green Fairy
SYMBOLIC FAIRIES
LESLIE COULSON From the Somme
ROBERT FROST The Spoils of the Dead
SARA TEASDALE Silence
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Holidays
FIONA MACLEOD (WILLIAM SHARPE) Dreams Within Dreams
HENRIK JOHAN IBSEN In the Picture Gallery
SEROJINI NAIDU To My Fairy Fancies
WILLIAM WINTER Unwritten Poems
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE The Sick Muse
THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES Another
E. E. CUMMINGS fromPost Impressions
WILLIAM BLAKE The Fairy
FRIEDRICH VON MATTHISSON Lied der Liebe (Song of Love)
SIOBHAN CAMPBELL Quickthorn
KATHERINE MANSFIELD Sorrowing Love
ANNE SEXTON Old Dwarf Heart
MONICA FERRELL Myths of the Disappearance
COUNTEE CULLEN Lines To My Father
ELINOR WYLIE Escape
WILLIAM BROWNE fromVisions
EMILY BRONT A Little Budding Rose
CHARLOTTE SMITH Sonnet LXIII: The Gossamer
EMILY DICKINSON Within my Garden, rides a Bird
SOPHIE JEWETT Across the Border
FATE OF THE FAIRIES
SHUZO TAKIGUCHI Fairy Distance
MARIE ELIZABETH JOSEPHINE PITT The Lost Fairies
VALERY BRYUSOV Golden Fairies
A. E. HOUSMAN XXI
LANGSTON HUGHES After Many Springs
RICHARD CORBET Farewell Rewards and Fairies
JOHN RUSKIN fromThe Emigration of the Sprites
FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS Fairies’ Recall
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY Doubt No More that Oberon
W. H. AUDEN Belief
LYNNE GREENBERGis a professor of seventeenth-century literature at Hunter College, CUNY. She has published extensively on early modern poetry and is the author of a memoir,The Body Broken. She lives in New York City.
Everyman’s Library
Pub Date: March 14, 2023
0.87″ H x 6.38″ L x 4.33″ W
256 Pages
Hardcover
