This Companion brings together specially commissioned essays by distinguished international scholars that reflect both the diversity of Victorian poetry and the variety of critical approaches that illuminate it. The volume opens with an introductory essay on Victorian poetics by Carol Christ that offers a commanding overview of the whole period. The remaining contributions are organized into three parts. The first surveys the variety of schools and styles in Victorian poetry; in the second, the focus shifts from the form and content of the poetry to the means of its production and distribution; the final part positions Victorian verse in its contexts and explores its interactions with dominant cultural discourses. The Companion as a whole does more than map the existing state of scholarship in the field; it sets out an agenda for future research.

Richard Cronin teaches at Glasgow University. His publications include The Politics of Romantic Poetry (2000) and Romantic Victorians: English Literature 1824-1840 (2002)

Antony H. Harrison teaches at North Carolina State University. His books include Victorian Poets and Romantic Poems (1990), Victorian Poets and the Politics of Culture (1998), The Culture of Christina Rossetti (1999), and The Letters of Christina Rossetti (4 vols, 1998-2004).

Alison Chapman teaches at Glasgow University and is the author of The Afterlife of Christina Rossetti (2000), editor of Victorian Women's Poetry (2003), and co-editor of Women and Italy in the Nineteenth Century (2002).