[263a] FitzGerald’s Omar Khayyám can be obtained in its four versions, each of which has its merits, only from the Macmillans, who publish it in many forms. The edition in the Golden Treasury Series may be particularly commended. The present writer has written an introduction to a sixpenny edition of the first version. It is published by William Heinemann.
[263b] Goethe’s Faust has been translated in many forms. Certainly Anster’s version (Sampson Low) is the most vivacious. Anna Swanwick, Sir Theodore Martin and Bayard Taylor’s translations have about equal merit.
[263c] Shelley’s Poetical Works should be read in the one volume issued in green cloth by the Macmillans, with an introduction by Edward Dowden, or in the Oxford Poets (Henry Froude), with an introduction by H. Buxton Forman, but perhaps the best edition is that of the Clarendon Press with an introduction by Thomas Hutchinson. Mr. Forman’s library edition of Shelley’s Complete Works is the desire of all collectors.
[263d] Byron’s Poetical Works, edited by Ernest Coleridge, form seven volumes of John Murray’s edition of Byron’s Works in thirteen volumes. There is not a good one-volume Byron. I particularly commend the three-volume edition (George Newnes).
[264a] Wordsworth may be read in his entirety in the sixteen volumes of Prose and Poetry edited by William Knight in the Eversley Library (Macmillan). The same publisher issues an admirable Wordsworth in one volume, edited, with an introduction by John Morley. But the first approach to Wordsworth’s verse should be made through Matthew Arnold’s Select Poems in the Golden Treasury Series (Macmillan).
[264b] Keats’s Works are issued in one volume in the Oxford Poets (Froude), and in five shilling volumes by Gowans and Gray of Glasgow. Mr. Buxton Forman’s annotations to this cheap edition exceed in value those attached to his more expensive “Library Edition,” which, however, as with the Shelley, in eight volumes, is out of print.
[264c] The four volumes of Burns, with an introduction by W. E. Henley, are pleasant to read. They are published by Jack, of Edinburgh. The best single-volume Burns is that in the Globe Library (Macmillan), with an introduction by Alexander Smith.
[264d] There is no rival to the one-volume edition of Coleridge’s Poems, with an introduction by J. Dykes Campbell, published by Macmillan. Mr. Dykes Campbell’s biography of Coleridge should also be read. The prose works of Coleridge are obtainable in Bohn’s Library. The fortunate book lover has many in Pickering editions.
[264e] Cowper’s Complete Works are acquired for a modest sum of the second-hand bookseller in Southey’s sixteen-volume edition. The two best one-volume issues of the Poems are the Globe Library Edition with an introduction by Canon Benham (Macmillan), and Cowper’s Complete Poems with an introduction by J. C. Bailey (Methuen). The best of the letters are contained in a volume in the Golden Treasury Series, with an introduction by Mrs. Oliphant. The Complete Letters of Cowper, edited by Thomas Wright, have been published by Hodder & Stoughton in four volumes.
[265a] Crabbe’s Works, in eight volumes, with biography by his son, may be obtained very cheaply from the second-hand book seller. With all the merits of both Works and Life they have not been reprinted satisfactorily. The only good modern edition of Crabbe’s Poems is in three volumes published by the Cambridge University Press, edited by A. W. Ward.