'The Observer' described Anne Ridler as 'one of the best poets of her generation.' Her first book, 'Poems', was published in 1939, and her work developed in the light and shadow of the poets of the day - MacNeice and Auden, but also Durrell and Watkins. As important to her was an affinity with the secular and devotional writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ambitious for her poems, she was never ambitious for reputation. Her work, like that of her friend E.J. Scovell, is only now receiving the attention it deserves. She has published ten collections of poetry, original and translated opera libretti, including Monteverdi's 'Orfeo'. She is the author of verse plays which have been performed in Oxford and London. This volume contains all that she wishes to preserve of her lyric poetry, together with choruses from the play 'The Trial of Thomas Cranmer'and a masque for music by Elizabeth Maconchy, 'The Jesse Tree'.

Ever since their publication in 1938, the Taliessin poems of Charles Williams have enspired and thrilled people from all over the English-speaking world. This volume collects commentary on the poems published in the quarterly newsletter of the Charles Williams Society between the years of 1977 and 1986. Charles Williams was one of the finest-not to mention one of the most unusual-theologians of the twentieth century. His mysticism is palpable-the unseen world interpenetrates ours at every point, and spiritual exchange occurs all the time, unseen and largely unlooked for. His novels are legend, and as a member of the Inklings, he contributed to the mythopoetic revival in contemporary culture.

This book has been the go-to guide on sheep health, disease and production for veterinarians, farmers, farm advisors and veterinary, agricultural and applied science students since it was first published in 1993. Its authors are recognised internationally in the field of sheep health and production and have a lifetime of experience in the New Zealand sheep industry as well as wide exposure to sheep farmers working with practical production and flock health issues. This fourth edition is extensively revised and fully redesigned.

Monteverdi's 1607 version of the legend of Orpheus is arguably the first masterpiece of opera. Composed for the court of Mantua, where Monteverdi was employed, it is very different from his two other surviving operas, which he wrote more than thirty years later to entertain Venetian audiences in the first public opera houses. Orfeo was long considered untranslatable, because the text is so closely tied to the music, and the Venetian librettos owe some of their brilliance to Spanish Golden Age theatre. This opera guide is an opportunity to read all three of Monteverdi's stage works together, in Anne Ridler's graceful translations. Contents: Operas contained in this volume: Orfeo, Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria, L'incoronazione di Poppea; Monteverdi, Opera and History, lain Fenlon; On Translating Opera, Anne Ridler; PART ONE: Mantua; A masterpiece for a Court, John Whenham; Music Examples; 'Orfeo': Favola in musica by Alessandro Striggio the Younger; Orfeo: English singing version by Anne Ridler; PART TWO: Venice; Musical Theatre in Venice, Paolo Fabbri; The Spanish Contribution to the Birth of Opera, Jack Sage; Monteverdi Returns to his Homeland, Tim Carter; Musical Examples; ll ritorno d'Ulisse in patria: Dramma in musica by Giacomo Badoaro; The Return of Ulysses: English singing version by Anne Ridler; Public Vice, Private Virtue, lain Fenlon and Peter Miller; Musical Examples; L'incoronazione di Poppea: Opera musicale by Giovanni Francesco Busenello; The Coronation of Poppea: English singing version by Anne Ridler