Reynard the Fox

Former Poet Laureate John Masefield (1878-1967) was one of the best-selling poets of the twentieth-century: his Collected Poems sold over 100,000 copies in the first seven years after publication in 1923. Widely known as a poet of the sea, Masefield’s two poems ‘Sea-Fever’ and ‘Cargoes’ were, in Betjeman’s opinion, two lyrics ‘which will be remembered as long as the language lasts’. Masefield also wrote of the English countryside, however, as in Reynard the Fox, his classic narrative poem of a fox-hunt, English countryside and community. The work has been seen by many as the author’s finest poetic response to the First World War.Despite being a phenomenal best-seller after publication in 1919, Reynard the Fox has been latterly out-of-print. For the first time, the poem has been corrected from the original manuscript and presented alongside other pastoral writing by Masefield, including his essay ‘Fox-Hunting’, which was praised by Muriel Spark. The edition also includes an introduction setting the poem in its historical context and detailed notes.