One Hundred and One Famous Poems

I really enjoy the format of this book. I believe the portraits of the corresponding poets are a very nice touch. I have yet to read through it all and I am looking forward to it. However, my copy of this book, despite being labeled "Very Good" is missing quite a handful of pages, which is disappointing to say the least. I purchased the leather bound edition.

My 1929 edition has always looked old, the pages were yellowing, and the oval portraits of the poets seemed outdated. I have had this old favorite on my bookshelf since childhood. Over the last month I again read all 101 poems, rediscovering poets and poetry that I had nearly forgotten. Cook's compilation is a historical snapshot, one made before the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, Vietnam, Civil Rights, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the US, as the only super power, faced with global terrorism. America was still fairly youthful in 1929; the Civil War had ended only 64 years before. Possibly reflecting our confidence in our American spirit and our sense of manifest destiny, this anthology includes a remarkable number of American poets. Some are no longer familiar, but their poetry sheds light on an earlier America, one that inhabited a less complicated world. One-third of the 'famous poems' belong to just twelve American poets - William Cullen Bryant -2 poems, Ralph Waldo Emerson -4, Eugene Field -3, Oliver Wendell Holmes -3, Vachel Lindsay -2, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -7, James Russell Lowell -2, Edwin Markham -2, Edgar Allan Poe -2, James Whitcomb Riley -2, Edward Sill -2, and John Greenleaf Whittier -3. I did not recall the names Field, Lindsay, Markham, or Sill. But I clearly remember as a young boy being fascinated by the paradox in Eugene Field's 'The Duel'. Surprisingly, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman rated only one poem each. The then contemporary poets Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Lee Masters, and Carl Sandburg each have one poem. Another one-third comes from 15 noted English poets (9 with multiple selections) - Elizabeth and Robert Browning, Burns, Byron, Gray, George Elliott, Leigh Hunt, Keats, Kipling, Milton, Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Shelley, Tennyson, and Wordsworth. The poets that created the final one-third 'famous poems' are fascinating in their anonymity. I simply did not recognize Lieut. Col. John McCrae, Henry Holcomb Bennett, Edmund Vance Cook, George Washington Doane, Sam Walter Foss, William Ernest Henley, Mary Howitt, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer, Winifred M. Letts, Clement Clarke Moore, Thomas Buchanan Read, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Their poems, however, were not entirely strangers: But let me live by the side of the road and be a friend of man - We shall not sleep though poppies grow in Flanders Field - a poem as lovely as a tree - Laugh and the world laughs with you - I am the captain of my soul - Will you walk into my parlor?, said the spider to the fly - The Night before Christmas. Many poems reflect the virtues of honor, commitment, respect of God, patriotism, honesty, perseverance, courage, respect for others, and loyalty. Others are playful and simply fun to read. Lay this old, outdated collection next to your favorite chair. It's great reading. You won't be disappointed.

This was my Dad's poetry text at college in the thirties. Every Christmas during his life he would read the 'holiday' poems to our family. I have carried on the tradition for my children and grandchildren and each year they await the reading of 'Bairnies Coodle Doon' and 'Jes for Christmas', two wonderful stories that bring forward the lives of children of a hundred years ago. If tradition is important to you and if you want to introduce your family to poetry as America knew it for the first 200 years, this collection if highly recommended.

This book was given to me by a Mrs. Jacobs in l933 at the Irene Kaufman Settlement in Pittsburgh, Pa.when I was ll years old. I am now 77 years and this little treasure has followed me everywhere my husband and I have been, during his in the service and since. Many of the poems I have have had to memorize in school, and I did it with pleasure. Started writing poetry at a very early age, and perhaps Mrs. Jacobs recognized that in me. I will always be grateful for that lovely woman's delightful intervention in my life. I have three daughters, five grandaughters, and one grandson, and they will each have a copy of this book, but not mine, while I live. Mine is dog eared and patched, and a most valuable possession. Bully for Roy J. Cook

This is an old anthology which I have read and treasured since I was a child. I don't know where the volume I fell in love with came from, only that it was very old, and barely holding together at the time and a great deal of the authors were still alive at the time. I was ecstatic to find a new paperback edition when I was in my early twenties and now I am replacing it with a hardback edition. I love every poem in there and believe that this one book began a lifelong love of poetry that continues now and in the future. You simply cannot go wrong in purchasing this book if you have a love for poetry or simply a new interest in it. It will start you on a rewarding reading pleasure no matter how vague your interest. The price is right, the material is priceless. Happy reading.