Benjamin Britten was a great reader of poetry: it affected his musical genius and style of composition. Friendships and collaborations with writers - Auden and E.M. Forster among them - left a mark. No other composer, not even Schubert or Schumann, set poems of such range and quality. All the poems Britten et are included in this unique anthology, reissued to mark the centenary of Britten's birth.