In making this anthology of the poetry of the twentieth century, the Editor tried to forget that any other anthology had ever been made. He read exhaustively through the poetry of the period, well-known and little-known poets alike, approaching them from the viewpoint of the present generation. The result is a selection that reveals modern poetry, not as something that can be read and appreciated only by the few, but as something very much alive, and full of meaning for men and women today.

          Sixty-eight poets are represented by over one hundred and twenty poems; they include, at one end, Bridges, Francis Thompson, Alice Meynell, A. E. Housman; at the other, Louis MacNeice, Day Lewis, George Barker, Auden, Spender and Dylan Thomas.