The story (told mostly with the aid of hitherto unpublished material located in the Royal archives at Windsor and the Tennyson Research Centre at Lincoln) of the remarkable friendship that developed between Queen Victoria and her Poet Laureate, Alfred Tennyson.

A brief profile of the nineteenth century English poet, Alfred Tennyson, accompanies selections from some of his best known works.

'Tennyson', wrote T. S. Eliot, 'has the finest ear of any English poet since Milton,' and his verse remains unrivalled in its combination of verbal richness, emotional depth and intellectual engagement. Tennyson drew on classical and medieval legends in poems like 'The Lotos-Eaters' (1832) and 'The Lady of Shalott' (1832) to explore the spiritual tensions of the nineteenth century. In one of the great works of his maturity, 'In Memoriam' (1850) - written after the loss of his dearest friend - Tennyson vividly negotiated contemporary scepticism and the modern sciences of geology and evolution. Similar ground is covered in a dramatically darker mood in 'Maud' (1855), a poignant account of psychological disintegration.

A century ago Tennyson had begun to be dismissed as a poet whose work embodied everything the modern world was looking to leave behind. He still seems to readers to embody the substance of the Victorian era more fully than any other poet—but nowadays that is counted in his favor. Critics continue to find layers of complexity in poems once thought simplistic—while appreciating with fresh ears Tennyson’s aural mastery. This new edition includes the two long poems In Memoriam and Maud: A Monodrama in their entirety, all the short poems for which Tennyson remains famous, and a generous selection of his lesser-known poetry, together with a concise introduction to the poet and his work, and substantial headnotes for In Memoriam, Maud, and Idylls of the King. Unlike other editions that provide a selection of Tennyson’s work, this one includes both marginal glosses of obscure or archaic words and phrases, and extensive annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices of visual material are also included.

The first volume of The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson showed the young manbecoming a poet and recorded the experiences--out of which so much of his poetrywas forged--that culminated in three personal triumphs: marriage, In Memoriam,and the Poet Laureateship. Volume IIreveals the gradual emergence of a new anddifferent Tennyson, moving confidentlyamong the great and famous--the intellectual, political, and artistic elite--yetremaining very much a son of Lincolnshire,whose childlike simplicity of manner strikesall who meet him. As a young man, he wasobliged to be paterfamilias of his father'sfamily; now he has a family of his own,with two sons reaching manhood, twohouses, and two lives, one in London andthe other at home. Through the letters we learn somethingabout his poetry (including "Maud," andThe Idylls of the King), much abouthis dealings with publishers, and evenmore about his travels--in Scotland,Wales, Cornwall, Norway, Switzerland,Auvergne, Brittany, the Pyrenees--and itis clear that all that he met became part ofhim and of his poetry. By the close of thisvolume he is one of the two or three mostfamous names in the English-speakingliterary world. The edition includes an abundance of letters to and about Tennyson as well as byhim, and its generous annotation has beencommended by reviewers for its range andwit.