From the astonishing debut Hawk in the Rain (1957) to Birthday Letters (1998), Ted Hughes was one of postwar literature's truly prodigious poets. This remarkable volume gathers all of his work, from his earliest poems (published only in journals) through the ground-breaking volumes Crow (1970), Gaudete(1977), and Tales from Ovid (1997). It includes poems Hughes composed for fine-press printers, poems he wrote as England's Poet Laureate, and those children's poems that he meant for adults as well. This omnium-gatherum of Hughes's work is animated throughout by a voice that, as Seamus Heaney remarked, was simply "longer and deeper and rougher" than those of his contemporaries.

Acknowledgements

EARLY POEMS AND JUVENILIA (1946-57)

THE HAWK IN THE RAIN (1957)

UNCOLLECTED (1957-59)

LUPERCAL (1960)

UNCOLLECTED (1960-67)

from RECKLINGS (1966)

from WODWO (1967)

UNCOLLECTED (1967-70)

[CROW]

FOUR CROW POEMS (1970)

A FEW CROWS (1970)

from CROW: FROM THE LIFE AND SONGS OF THE CROW (1970)

from CROW WAKES (1971)

from POEMS. RUTH FAINLIGHT, TED HUGHES, ALAN SILLITOE

UNCOLLECTED (1971-73)

PROMETHEUS ON HIS CRAG (1973)

UNCOLLECTED (1974-75)

SEASON SONGS (1976)

UNCOLLECTED (1976-77)

from GAUDETE (1977)

UNCOLLECTED (1977-78)

from ORTS (1978)

CAVE BIRDS (1978)

ADAM AND THE SACRED NINE (1979)

REMAINS OF ELMET (1979)

UNCOLLECTED (1979)

MOORTOWN DIARY (1979)

2from EARTH-NUMB (1979)

UNCOLLECTED (1980-81)

from A PRIMER OF BIRDS (1981)

UNCOLLECTED (1981-83)

from RIVER (1983)

UNCOLLECTED (1983-86)

from FLOWERS AND INSECTS (1986)

UNCOLLECTED (1987-89)

from WOLFWATCHING (1989)

CAPRICCIO (1990)

RAIN-CHARM FOR THE DUCHY (1992)

UNCOLLECTED (1992-97)

TALES FROM OVID (1997)

BIRTHDAY LETTERS (1998)

HOWLS & WHISPERS (1998)

UNCOLLECTED (1997-98)

Appendix One: Notes and Prefaces by Ted Hughes

Appendix Two: Variant Titles

Appendix Three: Variant Lists of Contents

Notes

Index of Titles

Index of First Lines