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Rhyme and Reason

By Mark Forsyth
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Brief Description
Enchanting Stephen Fry Unconventional, surprising and provocative from the first page Times Literary Supplement Did you know: Lord Byron sold more books in a day than Jane Austen did in her lifetime During the First World War there were more women poets published than soldier poets... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2799
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Releases 5th January 2027 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Rhyme and Reason" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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Unruly by David Mitchell meets Super Infinite by Katherine Rundell in this quick, light-hearted and very funny tour through English poetry by bestselling author Mark Forsyth.

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

Enchanting Stephen Fry

Unconventional, surprising and provocative from the first page Times Literary Supplement

Did you know:

  • Lord Byron sold more books in a day than Jane Austen did in her lifetime
  • During the First World War there were more women poets published than soldier poets
  • A kitchen-maid became one of the most popular poets of the 18th century

Some people worry that they don't appreciate poetry; but English poetry wasn't written to be appreciated, it was written to be enjoyed. For six centuries people have been reading poetry for enjoyment— for fun, romance, religion, and entertainment— and this is a book about those people.

Rhyme and Reason takes you from a medieval accountant (called Chaucer) trying to entertain his lord, past a doomed love affair in the Tower of London, through adoring sonnets and notebooks filled with dirty poems, and into the heart of Byromania and the Victorian hearth, to help you understand why poetry has had such an enduring hold on the British psyche.

From the poems of housemaids to the rhymes of kings, it's the history of Britain through the poems that people read, recited and loved.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781805465300

Publisher: Atlantic Books

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 03 September 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Atlantic Books

Edition: Main

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 368

Collections

Arts & Culture Education & Reference European History History & Archaeology History & Military Mark Forsyth Non-Fiction Non-Fiction Pre-Orders Pre-order Books Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date

About the Author

Born in London in 1977, Mark Forsyth (aka The Inky Fool) was given a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary as a christening present and has never looked back. His book The Etymologicon was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller and was followed by The Horologicon and The Elements of Eloquence. He has written A Christmas Cornucopia on the origins of Christmas traditions and A Short History of Drunkenness. He has also penned a specially commissioned introduction for the new edition of the Collins English Dictionary, and written a novel for children called A Riddle for a King. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in London with his dictionaries, and blogs at blog.inkyfool.com

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    From Mark Forsyth, the author of the #1 international bestseller, The Etymologicon, comes a book of weird words for familiar situations. The Horologicon (or book of hours) contains the most extraordinary words in the English language, arranged according to what hour of the day you might need them. Do you wake up feeling rough? Then you’re philogrobolized. Find yourself pretending...
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