Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles

Michael Drayton opens as a sea-farer, charting the capes, calms and perilous rocks of a long voyage. His voyage is love—and he has only just begun to tell of it.

In the sonnet-rich world of Elizabethan England, three poets turn longing into sharply different kinds of song. Drayton’s Idea traces a lover’s changing fortunes, from a heart “slain” by love to the comic frustration of being answered only “No!” and “I!” Bartholomew Griffin’s Fidesa explores desire’s uneasy mix of tenderness and cruelty, while William Smith’s Chloris gives voice to a shepherd’s sorrowful devotion. Across these cycles, wit may disguise a wound, and a beloved’s smallest reply can become a whole argument. How far will each poet travel in pursuit of love—and what will the journey cost?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.