Reflecting the concerns of the age, the poetry expressed an intriguing blend of confidence and insecurity, faith and uncertainty, pride and humility. Alongside the major poets – Tennyson, Arnold, Browning and Hopkins – this anthology offers a rich diversity of poetry, much of it refreshingly anti-Victorian in spirit and tone, from the `nature` poetry of William Barnes and the individual voices of personal experience of Emily Bronte and Christina Rossetti, to the wonderful nonsense poems and rhymes of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear.