Kindle Price: $9.99

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

eBook features:
  • Highlight, take notes, and search in the book
  • In this edition, page numbers are just like the physical edition
Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Robert Browning
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition

by Robert Browning (Author), Daniel Karlin (Editor, Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 61 ratings
See all formats and editions
Robert Browning was one of the greatest of English poets, whose intense and original imagination enabled him to transform any subject he chose - whether everyday or sublime - into startling memorable verse. In his work he brought to life the personalities of a diverse range of characters, and introduced a new immediacy, colloquial energy and psychological complexity to the poetry of his day. This selection brings together verse ranging from early dramatic monologues such as the chilling 'My Last Duchess' and the ribald 'Fra Lippo Lippi', which show his gift for inhabiting the mind of another, to the popular children's poem 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' and many lesser known works. All display his innovative techniques of diction, rhythm and symbol, which transformed Victorian poetry and influenced major poets of the twentieth century such as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and Robert Frost.
Previous slide of product details
  1. ISBN-13
    978-0140437263
  2. Edition
    Reprint
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Penguin
  5. Publication date
    June 24, 2004
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    941 KB
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Browning (1812-1889) attended the newly founded University of London for a year before travelling widely on the Continent in the 1830s and 1840s. After a clandestine courtship, he married Elizabeth Barrett in 1846 and they lived in Italy until her death in 1861. He is one of the most significant and inventive of Victorian poets.

Daniel Karlin is a professor of English at University College, London. He has edited The Penguin Book of Victorian Verse.

From AudioFile

Thinking of the poems of Browning, one imagines Mediterranean lushness, sensuous music without rival. At first hearing, therefore, Frederick Davidson's voice--austere, clipped, world-weary--seems inappropriate, that is, until one hears how he carves the verse with his voice. Instead of producing the anticipated melodies, he delivers sound in slabs with ironic angles. Davidson's renderings are marvelous and unexpected. The recording doesn't list its contents. Besides making it difficult for a listener to locate favorite poems, this oversight conceals the absence of significant poems. J.F.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B002XHNMV2
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; Reprint edition (June 24, 2004)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 24, 2004
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 941 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 354 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 61 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
61 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

sarah scow
5.0 out of 5 stars Has all the classics
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
Browning's most famous poems are in here and the ones that he is known for in the literary world. Introduces Dramatic Monologue to poetry scene in Victorian age.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
K. A. Anderson
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Poetry
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2014
Verified Purchase
Browning is a genius. He is always relevant. The book was delivered on time and was crucial for my project. I am enjoying it.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Junietta B. McCall
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2016
Verified Purchase
This classic had the specific quote I was looking for.
Helpful
 Report
Razvan Viteazu
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2015
Verified Purchase
Great!
Helpful
 Report
Joseph M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Burying the Bishop and Disinterring the Shorter Poems
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2012
Born (as was Charles Dickens) in 1812; died (as did Gerard Manley Hopkins) in 1889, Robert Browning (part Romantic, part Victorian, and certainly part Modern) remains one of the most influential yet controversial literary giants of the 19th Century. Controversial? Henry James called him "a poet without a lyre." Oscar Wilde acknowledged that Browning had a lyre but that its strings were broken, famously remarking, "He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose." Yet both men admired him as a consummate creator of character, even rivaling Shakespeare. These evaluations notwithstanding, those of us who vaguely remember Browning from high school as the quintessential composer of blank-verse dramatic monologues, will perhaps be surprised and delighted at the range of rhythmic -- and rhyming -- patterns the poems in this collection show. Indeed, in a market fairly saturated with wonderful Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning offerings, it was savvy of acclaimed British actor Greg Wagland to concentrate here on shorter, lyrical poems that I, as a casual Browning fan, was unfamiliar with.

But how, with the aforementioned embarrassment of riches, does one choose one Robert Browning audiobook? If, as publisher-critic Michael Schmidt has written, "we read [poetry] with our ears," I would rephrase this by saying that if we're lucky, we also hear it with our eyes. But I'm not lucky; unlike prose, I MUST HEAR poetry spoken (performed?) out loud, and the nature of (especially) this particular poet's oeuvre is such that he demands to be heard in dramatically polished recordings such as this one by Wagland -- the new kid on the Browning block. (At Audible you can also compare veteran voice actors David Timson and Patience Tomlinson's superb collaboration  The Great Poets: Robert Browning , with James Mason's iconic portrayals of disturbed priests and uxoricidal husbands  The Poetry of Browning ; you can purchase 3 to 15-minute readings by Cathy Dobson, or at the other extreme Frederick Davidson's 5-hour (!) monotone marathon ( Robert Browning: Selected Poems ). Obviously narrators differ in vocal tone and timbre, as well as interpretive approach. For these reasons alone you and I may prefer different readers. On a theoretical continuum from straight-up reading to the over-wrought ACTING so preciously satirized by Jon Lovitz's "Saturday Night Live" sketches, Greg Wagland lands in the golden middle: not quite understated; pensive but not subdued. That said, unlike say Davidson (who always sounds like Davidson), Wagland's tone varies as it should depending upon the poem, and his interpretations are always moving and dead on.

The poems on this audiobook, listed in ORDER, are: 1. The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church 2. The Lost Leader 3. Love Among the Ruins. 4. Up at a Villa, Down in the City 5. A Woman's Last Word 6. A Toccata of Galu
ppi's 7. Love in a Life. 8. Life in a Love. 10. Two in the Campagna 11. Dubiety 12. Apparent Failure 13. Prospice 14. Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 15. A Grammarian's Funeral 16. Pictor Ignatius 17. My Star.

All poems but the first one rhyme. So much for high-school memories and Oscar Wilde.
7 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
adead_poet@hotmail.com
4.0 out of 5 stars one of the greats
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2001
Browning is one of the great poets. this selection contains poems such as 'the last dutchess', 'porphyria's lover' and 'childe roland to the dark tower came' which shows browning at his best. this selected poems only whetted my appetite for a complete version.
8 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

chris brown
5.0 out of 5 stars Review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2021
Verified Purchase
Great book which I enjoyed and excellent service.
Report
Sharon Archer
5.0 out of 5 stars Quality item
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 23, 2020
Verified Purchase
Quality item
Report
Andy C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 24, 2015
Verified Purchase
Good for my uni studies
Report
Grace
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2017
Verified Purchase
Back page of book is torn. Very unhappy.
Report

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report