Best Selling Books by Ted Hughes

The past contemporary poet gives an account in 88 poems in letter form of hisromance and the life spent with Sylvia Plath.

Alcestis is the tale of a queen sacrificing herself so her husband may live. Ted Hughes'' classical translation was his final work, completed just before he died. As with his other works, it goes beyond its remit and is an inspired retelling of the play from his own perspective on human suffering.

"Wolfwatching" was the fourteenth collection published by Ted Hughes (1930-98), England''s former Poet Laureate. In it, we encounter several poems that feature his typically striking yet somber exactitude, a style of perception and depiction always unclouded by sentiment. Other poems find Hughes returning to the Yorkshire landscape of his childhood, recounting the tragic effects of World War I, or revisiting the dire plight of that region''s coal miners and textile workers. "Wolfwatching" is an unflinching book about the struggles of this world, struggles both physical and spiritual, both in and out of nature.

A collection of works by a contemporary English poet selected from twelve books of poetry written over a 25-year period.

The fearsome iron giant becomes a hero when he challenges a huge space monster.

Ted Hughes described letter-writing as "excellent training for conversation with the world." These nearly 300 letters—selected from several thousand—show him in all his aspects: poet, husband and father, lover of the natural world, proud Englishman, and a man for whom literature was a way of being fully alive to experience. There are letters dealing with Hughes''s work on classic books, from the early breakthrough Lupercal to the late, revelatory Birthday Letters. There are letters discussing, with notable frankness, his marriages to Sylvia Plath and then to Assia Wevill. After marrying Carol Orchard, in 1970, Hughes ran a farm in Dorset for several years, and there are letters touching on his interest in astrology, his strong and original views of Shakespeare, and his passion for farming, fishing, and the environment in general. Letters to Seamus Heaney and Philip Larkin situate Hughes among his peers as never before. Letters of Ted Hughes reveals the author as a prose writer of great vigor and subtlety. It deepens our understanding of—and our admiration for—this great twentieth-century poet.

This version of Frank Wedekind''s extraordinary play Spring Awakening was specially commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The themes it addresses and the sheer energy of the writing make this masterpiece of German symbolism startlingly relevant today. With its scenes of pubescent angst, sexual outspokenness, rape and homosexuality, the play still, more than one hundred years after it was first staged, has the power to shock. Ted Hughes''s rendition lends the dialogue a particularly modern terseness and bite, drawing out all the erotic energy of the original.

A collection of Ted Hughes'' poetry from previously published works, including "The Hawk in the Rain," "Lupercal," "Cave Birds," and "Season Songs."

The Iron Man describes the unexpected arrival in England of a mysterious giant "metal man" who wreaks havoc on the countryside by attacking the neighbouring farms and eating all their machinery. A young boy called Hogarth befriends him and he and the extraordinary being end up defending and saving the earth when it is attacked by a fearsome "space-bat-angel-dragon" from outer space.

Illustrations and rhyming text portray a hobby gone awry, as Bert''s collection of exotic pets seems on the verge of breaking into a quarrel, and perhaps a rumpus, as well.

Compendium of poems which powerfully explores the realm of primeval consciousness.

When Michael Hofmann and James Lasdun''s ground-breaking anthology After Ovid (also Faber) was published in 1995, Hughes''s three contributions to the collective effort were nominated by most critics as outstanding. He had shown that rare translator''s gift for providing not just an accurate account of the original, but one so thoroughly imbued with his own qualities that it was as if Latin and English poet were somehow the same person. Tales from Ovid, which went on to win the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, continued the project of recreation with 24 passages, including the stories of Phaeton, Actaeon, Echo and Narcissus, Procne, Midas and Pyramus and Thisbe. In them, Hughes''s supreme narrative and poetic skills combine to produce a book that stands, alongside his Crow and Gaudete, as an inspired addition to the myth-making of our time.

Originally published in 1979, Moortown Diary is the updated version of Ted Hughes''s acclaimed Devon farming sequence, written over a period of several years during which he was spending almost every day outside, either gardening or farming. The introduction and notes (added in 1989) sketch in the background from which these remarkable poems emerged as an improvised verse journal, sparely edited, coalescing spontaneously on the page. '' Moortown Diary keeps its eye firmly on the creatures behind the language. It''s written in the style of Hughes''s play translations: very swift and bright and urgent and speakable...Hughes strips away the protective layers - the soundproofed ears, the double-glazed eyes - that prevent us making contact with anything outside ourselves. Right now, I can''t think of anything more important than that kind of poem. Because we''re not just here to think about literature. We''re here to try to wake up.'' Alice Oswald, The Guardian ''It grips your heart, and your intestines, like a vice from the first page. He makes language as physical as a bruise, and in these poems beauty and tenderness blend with violence.'' John Carey, Sunday Times ''The Moortown sequence includes some of Hughes''s finest poems...They are like no other poems I have read, with a degree of intensity, sanity and grace that he has never equalled.'' Anthony Thwaite, Times Literary Supplement

This is a new version of the Racine play by Hughes. His reputation as a dramatist is firmly established following the success of previous adaptations of Oedipus and Spring Awakening. The book will tie-in with the production starring Diana Rigg.

A collection of illustrated poems about animals.

All the richness of the wild is seen through the poet''s eye. Here are poems from Hawk in the Rain, Wodwo, Wolfwatching, Lupercal and River as well as from Adam and the Sacred Nine, their juxtaposition highlighting the variety of the natural world and of Hughes''s poetry about it.

CHILDREN''S BOOKS/YOUNG ADULT

The authors second collection which prints some of his most revered work including Pike, Hawk Roosting and November.

A collection of stories by the poet laureate of England includes among others the fable "O''Kelly''s Angel," about a man who captures and cages an angel, and "The Wound," about an episode in World War II

All the poems of a great 20th-century poet.

A collection of 24 poems grouped to represent the four seasons.

This collection of eleven evocative, accessible and funny stories for children of 5+ tells how a particular animal came to be as it is now. The Whale grew up in God''s vegetable patch but was banished to sea when he became too large and crushed all His carrots; the Polar Bear was lured to the North Pole by the other animals who were jealous that she always won the annual beauty contest; the Hare has asked the moon to marry him but can never stretch his ears high enough to hear her reply; the Bee must sip honey all day long to sweeten the bitter demon that runs through his veins . . . each story is a delight for reading alone or aloud.

El poemario que escribió Ted Hughes en silencio a su primera esposa, Sylvia Plath «Este libro irrumpe con la fuerza inesperada de un rayo y leerlo es como sufrir su descarga eléctrica. [...] Nunca se había visto nada parecido en literatura.» Andrew Motion, The London Times Pocos meses antes de morir, Ted Hughes sorprendió al mundo con la publicación de Cartas de cumpleaños, un libro donde se reunían los poemas que, a lo largo de las últimas décadas, le había escrito en silencio a su primera esposa, la poeta norteamericana Sylvia Plath, quien acabó con su vida en febrero de 1963. A lo largo de estas páginas, Hughes, desde el centro de la intimidad, recuerda su relación con Plath, comenzando por el día en que se conocieron hasta los constantes y fatales tormentos que desembocaron en el suicidio de la poeta. Más allá de la anécdota biográfica, Cartas de cumpleaños es ya uno de los poemarios fundamentales de fi nales del siglo XX, una valiente conversación con una amada sombra en el quieto contraluz del recuerdo, una celebración de la vida, de la pasión extrema, a la vez que una poderosa meditación sobre la muerte. Y, por encima de todo, constituye la fulgurante despedida de uno de los mayores poetas de nuestro tiempo. La crítica ha dicho: «Este libro irrumpe con la fuerza inesperada de un rayo y leerlo es como sufrir su descarga eléctrica. Su potencia es a veces tierna, a veces humorística, a veces angustiada y brota siempre de un presente abrasador e inmóvil. Quienes pensaron que la reticencia de Hughes era una prueba de insensibilidad se darán cuenta inmediatamente de que los insensibles eran ellos. Estamos ante un libro escrito por alguien obsesionado, herido y que estuvo profundamente enamorado. Nunca se había visto nada parecido en literatura.» Andrew Motion, The London Times «Un libro extraordinario. [...] El tema de Hughes es la propia Plath: cómo era, cómo se movía y hablaba, sus gustos, rabias, sueños insólitos y múltiples miedos, lo que funcionaba entre ellos y lo que no.» A. Álvarez, The New Yorker «Los críticos que nos instan a considerar estos poemas como obras maestras tienen razón. Su intensidad de sentimiento, la claridad de sus imágenes, la precisión, la energía, la simplicidad y la fluidez de su lenguaje siguen siendo sorprendentes.» Paul Levy, The Wall Street Journal «Un tono emocional, directo, arrepentido y extasiado impregna los poemas más poderosos del libro, que son plácidos, reflexivos y conversacionales.» Katha Pollitt, The New York Times Book Review «La mayoría de estos poemas contienen una maravillosa inmediatez y ternura que es nueva en la escritura de Hughes, una ternura que le permite transmitir los terrores de Plath de una manera tan palpable como su propia poesía, y contagiar su propia sensación de pérdida y dolor. [...] Leedlos, pues constituyen el trabajo más fuerte y emocionalmente palpable de la carrera de Hughes.» Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times «La publicación estos poemas es el evento más sensacional en la historia reciente de la poesía en inglés.» Christopher Benfey, Slate

-A selection of animal poems from the seminal British poet, Ted Hughes---

Shows by explanation and example how modern poets such as Dickinson, Lawrence, Welty, Roethke, Plath, and Larkin captured pictures with words.

Explores the strange and wonderful moon-world. The terrain is fantastic, its creatures both intriguing and grotesque, but all is touched by the Poet Laureate''s moon magic.

This volume replaced Ted Hughes''s Selected Poems 1957-1981. It contains a larger selection from the same period, to which are added poems from more recent books, uncollected poems from each decade of Ted Hughes''s writing life, and some new work. Another notable feature is the inclusion of poems from his books for younger readers, What is the Truth? and Season Songs.