Narrative

14. After publishing a didactic poem in 1799, entitled The Pleasures of Hope, and another satire in 1785, called The News-Paper, Crabbe took a twenty-two year break from publishing. He returned in 1807 with Poems, and in the following years wrote The Borough (1810), Tales (1812), and Tales of the Hall (1819). The Borough is best remembered today as the source text for the Benjamin Britten opera, Peter Grimes. The major success of Peter Grimes in 1945 has since sparked renewed interest in Crabbe, thus allowing his writing to achieve a broader, contemporary readership. This volume of The Pocket Magazine of Classic and Polite Literature (v.7: 1821) features engravings from Crabbe’s Poems, including The Borough.