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Stevie Smith: A Selection

edited by Hermione Lee
4.08 goodreads logo

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( 146 ratings, 11 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
This comprehensive selection showcases the diverse talents of Stevie Smith, featuring poetry, prose, and drawings from Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) to Scorpion and Other Poems (1972). Hermione Lee's insightful introduction and arrangement reveal the rich connections across Smith's work, highlighting her originality and wit.

Accompanied by biographical and textual notes, this edition offers an inviting introduction to one of England's most idiosyncratic literary geniuses.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$3299
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in modernist poetry and English literary culture, as well as those seeking an accessible entry into an original and distinctive writer's work.

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The ideal introduction to a poet like no other - now reissued to join the Faber Poetry front-list

The ideal introduction to a poet like no other - now reissued to join the Faber Poetry front-list

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

This comprehensive and welcoming edition draws on the whole of Stevie Smith's output in poetry, prose and drawings from Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) to Scorpion and Other Poems (1972).

Hermione Lee's introduction and arrangement bring out the connections between Stevie Smith's different writings, and show us what an extraordinary and original writer she was.

The selection is complemented by biographical and textual notes, and forms an attractive introduction to the work of an idiosyncratic English genius.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

TLS praises Smith as "a poet who deserves a place among her fellow modernists as one of the best, silly-serious, funny-sad, mock mock-heroic poets of our time."

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780571347704

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 August 2019

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Faber & Faber

Edition: Main

Contributors:

  • Edited by Professor Dame Hermione Lee

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 15.0mm

Width: 131.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 290g

Pages: 224

About the Author

Stevie Smith (1902-71) lived in Palmers Green, London, and for much of her life worked as a secretary for the magazine publishers Sir George Newnes and Sir Neville Pearson. Her first book, Novel on Yellow Paper, appeared in 1936, and her final collection of poems, Scorpion, was published posthumously in 1972. In 1966 she received a Cholmondeley Award and in 1969 was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Biographer and critic Hermione Lee was President of Wolfson College from 2008 to 2017 and is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Oxford University. In 2003 she was made a CBE and in 2013 she was made a Dame for services to literary scholarship.

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    'Cheerful, brutal, beautiful! Stevie Smith is the wildest poet of them all.' Nick Cave 'I better say straight out that I am an addict of your poetry, a desperate Smith addict.' Sylvia Plath, writing to Stevie Smith, 1962 'Revolutionary, wild, and fierce.' Ali Smith Stevie Smith was not only a famous poet in her lifetime but a poet before her...
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