New Criterion, March 1st, 2000
Lightening the load
Christopher Ricks, editor Oxford University Press, 690 pages, $39.95
The Oxford Book of English Verse is exactly one hundred years old. The first editor was a gentleman-amateur, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who was appointed Professor of English Literature at Cambridge as a reward for years of service to the Liberal Party. His Oxford Book reflected the tastes of his generation (he was born in 1863) and, although frequently reprinted, now looks at best disarmingly bizarre and is in any case outdated. Its replacement in 1972 was, by contract, the work of a professional acade...
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