Poems Beautiful & Useful

£7.50

A choice of popular EARLY MODERN VERSE

made by VICTORIA MOUL

with an introduction and notes

How should we react to the vagaries of love and desire; the allure of power or fame and the uncertainty of fortune; the experience of war and the inevitability of death?

In early modern England it was taken for granted that a good poem is both beautiful and useful: that it teaches or expresses something that it is helpful to remember, as one tries to conduct a decent life. This pamphlet presents twenty poems from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which are, in most cases, not well known today. They have been chosen to reflect the kinds of verse that were most popular with readers at the time, but also for their beauty and utility.

Featuring twenty poets, from Mary Sidney Herbert and Walter Raleigh to Morgan Llwyd O Wynedd and Payne Fisher, including poems unavailable in any other modern edition.

Victoria Moul is a British literary critic, scholar, poet and translator living in Paris.

Dazzled thus with height of place,
Whilst our hopes our wits beguile,
No man marks the narrow space
‘Twixt a prison and a smile.

Publication date: 09 March 2026

36pp, staple-bound in card covers

Printed on Munken Pure paper in East London by Angel Press

ISBN: 978-1-9-9195507-0-1

Orders are posted within the week and often sooner.

A choice of popular EARLY MODERN VERSE

made by VICTORIA MOUL

with an introduction and notes

How should we react to the vagaries of love and desire; the allure of power or fame and the uncertainty of fortune; the experience of war and the inevitability of death?

In early modern England it was taken for granted that a good poem is both beautiful and useful: that it teaches or expresses something that it is helpful to remember, as one tries to conduct a decent life. This pamphlet presents twenty poems from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which are, in most cases, not well known today. They have been chosen to reflect the kinds of verse that were most popular with readers at the time, but also for their beauty and utility.

Featuring twenty poets, from Mary Sidney Herbert and Walter Raleigh to Morgan Llwyd O Wynedd and Payne Fisher, including poems unavailable in any other modern edition.

Victoria Moul is a British literary critic, scholar, poet and translator living in Paris.

Dazzled thus with height of place,
Whilst our hopes our wits beguile,
No man marks the narrow space
‘Twixt a prison and a smile.

Publication date: 09 March 2026

36pp, staple-bound in card covers

Printed on Munken Pure paper in East London by Angel Press

ISBN: 978-1-9-9195507-0-1

Orders are posted within the week and often sooner.