Publisher's synopsis
This volume contains the best and most characteristic of a lifetime’s work by one of Australia’s leading poets and critics. Hope’s classical approach to verse form and subject matter, his unblushing exploration of erotic themes, his lucid language and striking images are strongly evident in the poems selected.
Prose selections include items from Hope’s notebooks, his notorious reviews of Patrick White and other well-known authors, and essays illuminating his insight into poetics and the nature of poetry. The poems and prose have been selected by David Brooks, the most experienced editor of Hope’s work. They include items published in this volume for the first time, alongside many others already familiar to a large audience.
A. D. (Alec) Hope (1907–2000) is one of the most influential and celebrated Australian poets of the twentieth century. In 1951, he took a post as the first professor of English at the newly founded Canberra University College, later the Australian National University (ANU), and remained there until retiring in 1968. From 1968 he was appointed emeritus professor at the ANU. His first collection of poems, The Wandering Islands, was published in 1955. He went on to produce more than a dozen volumes each of poetry and criticism, winning many literature prizes and honours in Australia and internationally. A. D. Hope was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1972, a Companion of the Order of Australia for services to literature in 1981, and was awarded four honorary degrees by Australian universities.
