Poems and a Defence of Ryme

Harvard University Press has partnered with De Gruyter to make available for sale worldwide virtually all in-copyright HUP books that had become unavailable since their original publication. The 2,800 titles in the “e-ditions” program can be purchased individually as PDF eBooks or as hardcover reprint (“print-on-demand”) editions via the “Available from De Gruyter” link above. They are also available to institutions in ten separate subject-area packages that reflect the entire spectrum of the Press’s catalog. More about the E-ditions Program »

Samuel Daniel is known by name to even the most casual students of Elizabethan literature. But though his work has sound claims to recognition both on historical and on artistic grounds, it has long remained practically inaccessible. In the present volume are reprinted: Delia, a sonnet sequence which is believed to have influenced Shakespeare; The Complaint of Rosamond; Musophilus; Epistles; Ulisses and the Syren; and A Defence of Ryme—this last an important document in the history of English criticism. The texts are based on first editions, with full variant readings representing in many cases the poet’s own revisions. A brief Introduction is concerned with Daniel’s life and the general characteristics of his writings.