The Complete Poems

Penguin Classics re-issue. 8vo. Pp. xciv, 410, [8]. Illustrated card wraps featuring detail of David Hockney's oil painting Great Pyramid at Giza with Broken Head from Thebes (1963). Edited by John Haffenden, w/ Introduction, Bibliography, Appendices, Notes and Index.

Excised title-leaf, else fine.

A meticulous presentation of the complete poems – ranging from metaphysics to melancholy, social climbing to political satire, love to loss – that is both scholarly and erudite as befits this most ratiocinative of versifiers. The volume also includes Empson's own notes, which he regarded as a vital complement to the poetry: "There is a portentous air about compact verses without notes," he remarked "like a seduction without conversation."