An Anthology of Pure Poetry

In a conversation with Walter de la Mare and another friend (reproduced in the Introduction) George Moore, the Anglo-Irish novelist and man of letters, proposed "an anthology of pure poetry, the only one lacking on the book stalls."

Almost fifty years since the anthology's first appearance, it is still the only such one ever attempted. By "pure poetry" Moore meant lasting objects of verbal beauty and imagination that serve no purpose other than poetic enjoyment. Thus this delightful book of selections from both familiar and surprising sources—among others, Ben Jonson, Blake, Tennyson, Poe Walter Savage Landor, and Swinburne.