The last thirty years of Thomas Hardy's life was devoted to poetry. During this time after he had eschewed novel-writing he wrote hundreds of poems. These poems spanned a variety of styles including: satires, love poems, lyrics, reveries, and songs. The topics also spanned a great number including some focused on the Wessex countryside where he set his well-known novels. The result of all this poetic creation is a collection that rivals that of the greatest poets in the English-speaking world. I would recommend this volume to all who revere fine poetry. ( )

This is a review of the particular edition I own and I'm writing it to vent my feelings on the ugliness of the book. Mine is the hardback of the Palgrave Macmillan edition and it's available (in the UK, at least) 'print on demand'. If you look at 'Popular covers', you'll see a couple of rather nice-looking covers with a scene of a country church. This is what Amazon shows. You will also see a grey and ugly one with a strange little box with spikes sticking out of it, this in paler grey. It looks like a science textbook. This is what actually turned up on my doormat. I've never seen a hardback with a more glaringly inappropriate cover and I assume it's a standard cover for all their 'print on demands' (and, even then, I suspect the designer had some warped grudge against the world in general). Not an ornament to anyone's bookshelves.

I suppose I should say a bit about the contents. It contains every poem Hardy is known to have written (unfortunately, it seems to be the only hardback available that does so). They are set out in clear and reasonably-sized print. There is little else: a very short introduction and some notes on publication history of and changes made to individual poems, and the usual indices at the back. It also has a small number of illustrations that Hardy did for the original publications.

I'm not going to star it. I'd have to give it five stars for the contents and half a star, at most, for the actual book and an average wouldn't do justice to my feelings on either.