Peter Grimes

First published in 1810 as Letter XXII of The Borough, this narrative poem in heroic couplets tells of Peter Grimes, a fisherman in an English coastal town who takes boy apprentices from the workhouse. The boys die under his harsh treatment; the townspeople shun him, and he is left to work alone on the water, haunted by what he has done. Crabbe presents the borough's gossip, the river, and a mind collapsing under isolation and guilt. The piece is a verse tale of cruelty and ostracism within a provincial community, not the later opera libretto that borrows the name.

Quarter bound in dark grey cloth, pale blue-green paper boards patterned in blue and red. Pale blue-green endleaves. Transparent plastic dust-jacket, no slipcase.