In a beautiful one-poem-per-page design, Shakespeare's marriage of true minds rubs shoulders with John Davies of Hereford's the late ABC of love, Keats' stout Cortez with Darley's Manrique. Women poets who revived the sonnet in eighteenth century are restored to prominence, and modern poets as diverse as Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage are well represented. After an expository introduction that traces the sonnet in English from its appearance in the Tudor Court of the sixteenth century through its various historical reinterpretations and eras of popularity, 328 sonnets are arranged in order of the birth date of the poets. Thus, readers have a formidable guide to both the evolution of sonnet writing in English and the distinct voices of major and minor poets that have accepted the form's challenges and expressive power. This book also includes examples of the sonnet sequence as well as more unusual experimentation with form such as Sylvester's quadruple acrostic sonnets to his patron and Leigh Hunt's iterating sonnet.

In addition to the aforementioned poets, this collection includes sterling works by Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne, Lady Mary Wroth, John Milton, Aphra Behn, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Oscar Wilde,Robert Frost, Edna St Vincent Millay, Derek Walcott, and many more.