Penguin Classics: Poetry

A generous selection from the most charismatic and infamous of the Romantic poets. Described as 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know' by one of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron was the quintessential Romantic. Flamboyant, charismatic and brilliant, he remains almost as notorious for his life—as a political revolutionary, sexual adventurer and traveller—as he does for his literary work....

The first collected and annotated edition of Carroll's brilliant, witty poems, edited by Gillian Beer. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...' wrote Lewis Carroll in his wonderfully playful poem of nonsense verse, Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense. This new edition collects together the marvellous range of Carroll's poetry, including nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques,...

Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. By the end of his brief career, he had written poems of such beauty, imagination and generosity of spirit, that he had—unwittingly—fulfilled his wish that he should 'be among the English poets after my death'. This wide-ranging selection of Keats's poetry...

Spain's greatest and most well-loved modern poet, Lorca has long been admired for the emotional intensity and dark brilliance of his work, which drew on music, drama, mythology and the songs of his Andalusian childhood. From the playful Suites and stylised Gypsy Ballads, to his own dark vision of urban life, Poet in New York, and his elegiac meditation on...

'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked' Beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. This new collection brings together the famous poems that made his name as a defining figure of the counterculture. They include the apocalyptic Howl, which became the subject of an obscenity...

A luminous tour through the poems of one of nature's most brilliant and devoted observers. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I...

An exciting new selection of poems exploring faith, the divine and doubt, written by poets across the world from antiquity to the present Poets have always looked to the skies for inspiration and have written as a way of getting closer to the power and beauty they sense in nature, in each other and in the cosmos. This anthology is...

A light revision of our definitive collection, translated with an introduction by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite. Poetry remains a living part of the culture of Japan today. The clichés of everyday speech are often to be traced to famous ancient poems, and the traditional forms of poetry are widely known and loved. This congenial attitude comes from a poetical...

Poems: 1968-2020 presents a new selection of Nikki Giovanni's poetry, spanning from 1968 to the present day. For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. Emerging from the Black Arts Movement in the late 1960s, she quickly became one of the most celebrated and controversial poets of the era. Now considered a living legend, this...

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. Selected...

A fine collection of the greatest French tales about the legend of Arthur. Taking the legends surrounding King Arthur and weaving in new psychological elements of personal desire and courtly manner, Chrétien de Troyes fashioned a new form of medieval Romance. The Knight of the Cart is the first telling of the adulterous relationship between Lancelot and Arthur's Queen Guinevere,...

Selected Poetry by Goethe marks the first verse translation of Goethe's poetry to be featured in Penguin Classics. This new translation replaces Luke's own 1964 prose translation, which has remained in print continuously, with life sales reaching 43,000 copies.

The poems of Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) are among the most haunting and tender in Indian and world literature, expressing a profound and passionate human yearning. His ceaselessly inventive works deal with such subjects as the interplay between God and the world, the eternal and transient, and with the paradox of an endlessly changing universe that is in tune with unchanging...

The Erotic Poems by Ovid explores the multifaceted nature of sexual desire through a collection of poems that range from passionate declarations of eternal love to light-hearted justifications for promiscuity. In the Amores, Ovid expresses his feelings through a series of elegies dedicated to Corinna, his captivating and elusive mistress. These early poems reveal an intimate and vulnerable side of...

New translation by Alicia Stallings, with an introduction by Richard Jenkyns. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius is a poem that blends scientific inquiry and philosophical exploration with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour, Lucretius seeks to show humanity that there is nothing to fear in death, as the soul is mortal and the...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series—beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. Lyrical Ballads (1798) is a landmark collection of poems that marks the beginning of the English Romantic Movement in literature. Co-written by friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the collection broke away from traditional poetic form. Of the twenty-three poems, Wordsworth penned works such as 'Lines...

The collected poems of Lewis Carroll, newly edited by Gillian Beer and published in a beautiful clothbound edition. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...' wrote Lewis Carroll in his wonderfully playful poem of nonsense verse, Jabberwocky. This new edition collects together the marvellous range of Carroll's poetry, including nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques,...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books On the fields of Troy, war is raging. At its centre is Achilles—godlike, swift-footed, the greatest champion of the Greeks. But when his pride is wounded and he refuses to fight, the thread of fate begins to spin... From frenzied rampages to intimate moments of grief, this selection from Homer's Iliad...

Drawing together for the first time his poems, letters, essays, songs, and photographs, this wide-ranging collection is the essential record of the Beat icon. Visionary poet Allen Ginsberg was one of the most influential cultural and literary figures of the 20th century, his face and political causes familiar to millions who had never even read his poetry. Yet, he is...

A major career-spanning collection from the inimitable Nobel Prize-winning poet. For the past fifty years, Louise Glück has been a major force in modern poetry, distinguished as much for the restless intelligence, wit, and intimacy of her poetic voice as for her development of a particular form—the book-length sequence of poems. This volume brings together the twelve collections Glück has...

The most acclaimed volume of poetry by the legendary Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic Filled with rage and tenderness, Audre Lorde's most acclaimed poetry collection speaks of mothers and children, female strength and vulnerability, renewal and revenge, goddesses and warriors, ancient magic and...

Kerouac's famed freewheeling poem joins the Penguin Modern Classics. 'I want to be considered a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday' Freewheeling and spontaneous, Mexico City Blues is Jack Kerouac's most significant and emblematic poem. Consisting of 242 loosely linked 'choruses', it takes in life, death, spirituality, jazz improvisation, memory, fantasies and dreams,...

The Night is Darkening Round Me is part of the Little Black Classics series, released to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. '... ever-present, phantom thing; My slave, my comrade, and my king'

The Nature of Things by Lucretius is a profound exploration of the natural world and our place in it. This epic poem, composed in the 1st-century BC, offers a comprehensive examination of the universe, nature, and the human soul through a combination of scientific inquiry, philosophical discourse, and lyrical poetry. Lucretius embarks on a poetic journey to explain the workings...

The Eclogues by Virgil is an exquisite collection of ten pastoral poems that masterfully blend a Greek literary form with vivid depictions of contemporary Roman life. These poems traverse the tranquil landscapes of rural Italy, where shepherds converse and sing, grappling with the various emotional and socio-political upheavals of their time. Filled with idyllic imagery and poignant emotion, the Eclogues...

The poems published in Joyce's own lifetime are collected in a new edition, with an introduction and notes by scholar Clare Hutton. It is only James Joyce's towering genius as a novelist that has led to his comparative neglect as a poet. And yet his poems not only occupy a pivotal position in Joyce's career, they are also magnificently assured...

The major devotional work by one of the greatest Christian mystics and Spanish poets. O living flame of love, how tenderly you scorch me The poetry of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, has inspired and consoled for hundreds of years, influencing writers from James Joyce to Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill to T.S. Eliot and Mary Oppen. This...

A newly revised and expanded version of the great national epic of Persia—the most complete English-language edition and definitive translation by Dick Davis. The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran is now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition. A Penguin Classic. Dick Davis—"our pre-eminent translator from the Persian" (The...

Penguin Modern Hardbacks — a new series of iconic works from the Modern Classics list with bold, mid-century-inspired cover designs. Drawn from fifty years of experimental, ground-breaking verse, this selection, in Ginsberg's words, 'summarizes what I deem most honest, most penetrant of my writing'. It includes the major poems Howl and 'Kaddish', but also important early work, songs, uncollected poems...

A beloved and ground-breaking collection by the legendary poet, writer and political activist. I am Black because I come from the earth's inside now take my word for jewel in the open light. Impassioned and profound, the poems in Coal showcase Audre Lorde in all her dazzling elegance and multiplicity. Mournful, celebratory, politically conscious, this early collection faithfully captures the...

Édouard Glissant's most celebrated, scintillating philosophical work sets out a new poetic vision for the world. 'We cry our cry of poetry. Our boats are open, and we sail them for everyone.' In Poetics of Relation, his most celebrated philosophical work, Édouard Glissant turns the Caribbean reality of his life into a complex, energetic vision of a world in transformation....

The Romanticism that emerged after the American and French revolutions of 1776 and 1789 represented a new flowering of the imagination and the spirit, and a celebration of the soul of humanity with its capacity for love. This extraordinary collection sets the acknowledged genius of poems such as Blake's Tyger, Coleridge's Khubla Khan and Shelley's Ozymandias alongside verse from less...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series- beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets Wessex Poems was Hardy's first collection of poetry, published after he had turned away from novel writing, disillusioned by the savage reception Jude the Obscure had received. Its publication marked the start of an extraordinary new phase in Hardy's writing career- for the rest of his...

An award-winning collection from one of America's most distinguished twentieth-century poets. Blessing the Boats draws together poems from across Lucille Clifton's career, showcasing the stunning simplicity and grace with which she addressed the whole of human experience—birth, death, children, family, illness, sexuality, and injustice in antebellum and contemporary America. Hers is a poetry that is passionate and wise, not afraid...

First Penguin volume Of best Japanese haiku Vivid translations Now a global poetry, the haiku was originally a Japanese verse form that flourished from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Although renowned for its brevity, usually running over three lines in seventeen syllables, and by its use of natural imagery to make Zen-like observations about reality, in fact, the haiku is...

The comprehensive guide to a deeply human tradition of memory, mourning and consolation. Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practised by the Romans, revitalised by the poets of the Renaissance and continuing down to the present day, it speaks eloquently and affectingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. It...

An important new selection of First World War poetry, edited by Jon Stallworthy and Jane Potter. This new selection brings together the poetry of three of the most distinctive and moving voices to emerge from the First World War. Here are the controlled passion and rich metaphors of Wilfred Owen's celebrated verses such as Anthem for Doomed Youth and Strange...

A window onto the past, full of fire and life- two immortal traditions as the English language has never seen them before SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE RUNCIMAN AWARD The poets in this book are philosophers and statesmen; priestesses and warriors; teenage girls, concerned for their birthday celebrations; drunkards and brawlers; grumpy old men...

A luminous new translation of one of the greatest poets in Chinese history Li Qingzhao is justly celebrated for her place in Chinese literary history. She was a poet with a wry, unsentimental style and a rich sense of melody. Her ci—lyrics that were originally set to music—are glorious in their depth and genius, spare and arresting on the line....

Published for the centenary of his birth, a gathering of lucid, intensely lyrical poetry from one of the twentieth century's pre-eminent literary voices. be courageous when reason fails you be courageous in the final reckoning it is the only thing that counts Zbigniew Herbert was one of the best-known and most-translated poets of post-war Poland, opposed alike to Communism, Fascism,...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series: beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. In the summer of 1820, Keats published this collection, his third and final volume of poetry. A few months earlier, he had started coughing up blood; the following February, he would die of tuberculosis in Rome, aged just twenty-five. This volume contains his greatest work, written...

A new selection of John Donne's endlessly innovative and fascinating verse, from the witty conceit of 'The Flea' to the instense spirituality of his divine poems. Regarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in...

Regarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. Regarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in his youth,...

A dazzling selection from one of the most beloved American poets, whose distinctive verse resonates around the globe. hear your voice a wild sea pausing in the wind Few poets in history have possessed the irrepressible humanity and abundant positivity that characterise Sonia Sanchez's astonishing body of work. Energetic, infectious and rich with sonic exuberance, Sanchez's poems have radically transformed...

A new verse translation of one of the foundational ancient Greek works by the award-winning poet Alicia Stallings. The ancient Greeks revered Hesiod, believing he had beaten Homer in a singing contest, and that after his dead body was thrown to sea it was brought back by dolphins. His Works and Days is one of the most important early works...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series: beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. On his deathbed, George Herbert entrusted the manuscript of The Temple to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, asking him to publish it if he thought it was worthy. Herbert died in 1633, and the collection was published the same year to great acclaim, subsequently becoming one of...

C. P. Cavafy is one of the most singular and poignant voices of twentieth-century European poetry, conjuring a magical interior world through lyrical evocations of remembered passions, imagined monologues, and dramatic retellings of his native Alexandria's ancient past. Figures from antiquity speak with telling interruptions from the author in such poems as Anna Comnena and You did not understand, while...

Fifty new books at €1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. 'I have lived in important places, times When great events were decided . . .' By turns comical, grouchy and exalted, and including his tragic masterpiece The Great Hunger, some of the key poems by the...

Member of Parliament, tutor to Oliver Cromwell's ward, satirist and friend of John Milton, Andrew Marvell was one of the most interesting and important poets of the seventeenth century. The Complete Poems demonstrates his unique skill and immense diversity to the full, and includes lyrical love-poetry, religious works and biting satire. From the passionately erotic To his Coy Mistress, to...

Michael Hamburger's distinguished translation of a selection of poems by German poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) is now recognised as one of Europe's supreme poets. He first found his true voice in the epigrams and odes he wrote when transfigured by his love for the wife of a rich banker. He later embarked on an extraordinarily ambitious sequence of...

Part of a series of new editions of Lawrence's works From early, rhyming works in Love Poems and Others (1913) to the ground-breaking exploration of free verse in Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923), the poems of D. H. Lawrence challenged convention and inspired later poets. This volume includes extensive selections from these and other editions, and contains some of his...

First paperback publication of this much-loved anthology of poems to take you from birth to death, and a little beyond... Taking its inspiration from Shakespeare's idea of the "seven ages" of a human life, this new anthology brings together the best-loved poems in English to inspire, comfort, and delight readers for a lifetime. Beginning with babies, the book is divided...

A poetry collection of epic scale and transformative vision from one of the most innovative American poets. For over half a century, Jay Wright's poetry has been celebrated for its alertness to the multiplicity of human experience and identity, and championed by eminent literary figures from Carl Phillips to Harold Bloom. The gravitational pull of Wright's lyric voice transforms life...

Byron's exotic poem on the love life and adventures of Don Juan. Byron's exuberant masterpiece tells of the adventures of Don Juan, beginning with his illicit love affair at the age of sixteen in his native Spain and his subsequent exile to Italy. Following a dramatic shipwreck, his exploits take him to Greece, where he is sold as a slave,...

The greatest classic of Vietnamese literature in a stunning new verse translation. "This manuscript is ancient, priceless, bamboo-rolled, perfumed with musty spices. Sit comfortably by this good light, that you may learn the hard-won lesson that these characters contain." The Song of Kieu is the greatest classic of Vietnamese literature. It tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thoy Kieu,...

On Love and Barley by Matsuo Basho presents the work of one of the greatest Japanese poets, a master of haiku. Known not only for his literary genius, Basho was also a Buddhist monk and a lifelong traveller. His poems embody 'karumi', or lightness of touch, and embrace the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. Each verse beautifully evokes aspects...

One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each offers a new translation of the most widely known and popular collection of Japanese poetry. The best-loved and most widely read of all Japanese poetry collections, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu contains 100 short poems on nature, the seasons, travel, and, above all, love. Dating back to the seventh century, these elegant, precisely observed waka...

A wonderful collection of Housman's much-loved poetry, new to Penguin Classics. A. E. Housman was one of the best-loved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss. They are expressed in simple rhythms, yet show a fine ear for the subtleties of metre and alliteration. His scope...

Rossetti is unique among Victorian poets for the sheer range of her subject matter and the variety of her verse form. This collection brings together fantasy poems, such as Goblin Market, and terrifyingly vivid verses for children, love lyrics and sonnets, and the vast body of her devotional poetry. Rossetti's poems weave connections between love and death, triumph and loss,...

A collection of the beautiful, surprising poems of Catullus. One of the most versatile of Roman poets, Catullus wrote verse of an almost unparalleled diversity and stylistic agility, from the brevity of the epigram to the sustained elegance of the elegy. This collection contains all of Catullus' extant work and includes his lyrics to the notorious Clodia Metelli—married, seductive, and...

Spenser's masterpiece, The Faerie Queene, is among the most influential poems in the English language. It was the first epic in English and established the possibilities of heroic poetry in the English tradition. The author's intention was to rival, or surpass, the epic romances of the Italian poets Ariosto and Tasso through the "darke conceit" of this poem, which unites...

Alexander's translation is marked by a conviction that it is possible to be both ambitious and faithful and...communicates the poem with a care which goes beyond fidelity-to-meaning and reaches fidelity of implication. May it go on ...to another half-million copies." - Tom Shippey, Bulletin of the International Association of University Professors of English

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Rumi's verses have been a balm for readers' souls for over eight centuries. This exquisite selection brings together some of the Persian mystic's most profound, evocative and transcendent works. Exploring passion, heartbreak, friendship, faith and the myriad ways in which we move through the world, these strikingly modern poems are perfect...

To Read and Dream by Christina Rossetti is part of a special collection celebrating 90 classic titles over 90 years of Penguin Books. Christina Rossetti, one of the finest poets of the Victorian age, is renowned for the directness, clarity, and unmatched lyricism of her works. This selection of her poetry brings together some of her finest verses, love lyrics,...

The Aeneid of Virgil (70-19 B.C.) describes the legendary origin of the Roman nation. It tells of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who escaped, with some followers, after Troy fell, and sailed to Italy. Here they settled and laid the foundations of Roman power. The Aeneid is a poet's picture of the world, where human affairs are controlled by human and...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Sunflower Sutra features poetry by Allen Ginsberg, whose work fomented a social and political revolution. Renowned for its rawness and spontaneity, Ginsberg's poetry changed the course of the American lyric. His verses explore themes of sex, death, and America, delivering a blend of profane and prophetic insights. The humour of his...

Sailing to Byzantium by W B Yeats is a part of the collection celebrating 90 classic titles marking 90 years of Penguin Books. Under bare Ben Bulben's head In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid. An ancestor was rector there Long years ago, a church stands near, By the road an ancient cross. No marble, no conventional phrase; On limestone quarried...

Rescue by Czeslaw Milosz is a part of the collection of 90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books. This volume brings together two of Milosz's most celebrated works. Rescue, penned in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, stands alongside A Treatise on Poetry, a monumental history of Poland told through four cantos. These works represent the keen insights of...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books We are the ones we have been waiting for These poems of radical love, urgency, and global consciousness reach across borders to break open the silence of oppression and the taboo, liberating both body and soul. Lively and enigmatic, Passion is June Jordan's most accomplished and animated collection. Her virtuosic, resolute...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books In October Nights, Gerard de Nerval takes us on a gentle meander through nighttime Paris - a dreamlike journey towards getting lost. Also included in this volume is Sylvie, his haunting novella of love and memory, the 'masterpiece' that inspired Proust to write In Search of Lost Time. Together, these works...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 'Tis all that I implore; In life and death, a chainless soul, With courage to endure. In this new selection of Emily Brontë's heart-rending poems, we uncover a soul unafraid to confront mortality, tragedy and the wild cruelty - and beauty - of...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books May I remember always when, Your glance in secrecy met mine, And in my face your love was like A visibly reflected sign. May I remember always when, Your chiding eyes were like my death, And your sweet lips restored my life, Like Jesus's reviving breath. May I remember always when,...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Lay down all hope, you that go in by me . . . Through the gates of Hell, past whirling hurricanes, leering devils and rivers of blood, lies the ultimate evil - Satan himself. Masterfully translated by Dorothy L. Sayers, this first instalment of The Divine Comedy tells the captivating tale...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books I am Black because I come from the earth's inside now take my word for jewel in the open light. Impassioned and profound, the poems in Coal showcase Audre Lorde in all her dazzling elegance and multiplicity. Mournful, celebratory, and politically conscious, this early collection is a testament to Lorde's beloved...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Now you slip away in sleep. Your boat is sea-mist, dreaming, by the shore. Spain's most beloved poet, Federico García Lorca, brilliantly captures the beauty and brutality of the twentieth century. His creative imagination transcends his own experiences—be it from the perspective of an ant, a gypsy nun, or Socrates—to meditate...

W.B. Yeats's Selected Poems is edited with an introduction and notes by Timothy Webb in Penguin Modern Classics. Few have lived their ideas so passionately and nobly as W.B. Yeats in his love affairs, politics, and poetry. From his youth in the 1880s, as a fertile dreamer rediscovering and remaking the Irish tradition, he grew into a great and innovative...

The complete collection of Kingsley Amis's poems, as witty, scabrous and bracing as his celebrated novels. Although best known for his comic novels, Kingsley Amis wrote poetry throughout his career. Collected Poems spans subjects from nature and cricket to love, ageing and literature, brimming with his characteristic wit and irreverence, yet full of compassion. 'The Last War' brings home the...

A widely revered collection from the Nobel prize-winning poet, publishing in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time. This startlingly original reworking of the Persephone myth takes us to the icy shores of Averno, the crater lake regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. Here, the consolations of rebirth and renewal are eclipsed by the immediacy...

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. A Terrible Beauty Is Born features the powerful lines: 'But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet...' By turns joyful and despairing, this collection presents some of the twentieth century's greatest verse,...

From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil's great epic. Fleeing the ashes of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles' mighty foe in The Iliad, begins an incredible journey to fulfil his destiny as the founder of Rome. His voyage will take him through stormy seas, entangle him in a tragic love affair, and...