This is a rich selection of poetry from the golden age of English poetry - 1509-1659. The text includes a wide range of works by the great poets of the age - notable Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, John Donne, William Shakespeare and John Milton.

Learned divines despised it, sober heads ignored it, but for Henry VIII poetry made things happen. It affected his wars, his diplomacy and his many marriages. In this book, Nicola Shulman interweaves the bloody events of Henry's reign with the story of English love poetry and the life of its first master: Sir Thomas Wyatt.