Comic and Curious Verse

A.E. Housman · Benjamin Franklin King · J.K. Stephen · A.C. Swinburne · Lewis Carroll · Thomas Hardy · W.S. Gilbert · Edward Lear · William McGonagall · A.H. Clough · Lord Byron · Walter Raleigh · Wendy Hillier

Nov 2020 · William Collins · Narrated by Sir John Gielgud, Imogen Stubbs, and Tim Pigott-Smith

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1 hr 52 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic fiction read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first time.

A collection of the funny, curious verse written during the 19th and 20th centuries, read by some of Britain's most renowned actors.

Humorous and whimsical verse are collated together in these timeless readings of poetry from our funniest writers.

Performed by Sir John Gielgud; Imogen Stubbs; Tim Pigott-Smith; Peter Orr; Wendy Hillier.

This collection includes poems from:
• A.E. Housman
• Benjamin Franklin King
• J.K. Stephen
• A.C. Swinburne
• Lewis Carroll
• Thomas Hardy
• W.S. Gilbert
• Edward Lear
• William McGonagall
• A.H. Clough
• Robert Barnabas Brough
• Thomas Grey
• Lord Byron
• Walter Raleigh
• Oliver Goldsmith
• George Canning
• John Dryden
• Samuel C. Boston
• H.C. Beeching
• C.S. Calverley
• William Walsh
• W.M. Thackeray
• George Coleman
• Hartley Coleridge
• Charles Cros
• George Du Maurier
• W.R. Mardale
• Matthew Prior
• Earl Of Rochester
• Thomas Love Peacock
• Thomas Hood
• Harry Graham

About the author

A. E. Housman was born in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England on March 26, 1859. In 1877, he attended St. John's College, Oxford and received first class honours in classical moderations. He worked as clerk in the Patent Office in London for ten years. During this time he studied Greek and Roman classics intensively, and in 1892 was appointed professor of Latin at University College, London. In 1911 he became professor of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, a post he held until his death. He only published two volumes of poetry during his lifetime: A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems. He died on April 30, 1936. A third volume, More Poems, was released posthumously in 1936 by his brother as was an edition of Housman's Complete Poems in 1939. Charles Luthwidge Dodgson was born in Daresbury, England on January 27, 1832. He became a minister of the Church of England and a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. He was the author, under his own name, of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, Symbolic Logic, and other scholarly treatises. He is better known by his pen name of Lewis Carroll. Using this name, he wrote Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He was also a pioneering photographer, and he took many pictures of young children, especially girls, with whom he seemed to empathize. He died on January 14, 1898.

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