This 3-disc box set collects the British TV series Six Centuries of Verse into one tidy set. The show itself is basically a crash course in the history of British and American poetry. Starting out with Chaucer and ending with the early 1980s, the show covers the high points in between. Poets covered include: Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas and tons more.

The series is hosted by renowned actor John Gielgud. He intros each episode, providing background and historical context for each of the poets and their work. The poems are then read or acted out by several stellar actors: Stacy Keach, Ian Richardson, Julian Glover, Anthony Hopkins and lots more.

I should point out that the general video quality isn’t that great. It looks like they took the original TV transfer and put it straight to DVD without any improvement. Essentially it’s like watching a VHS tape on DVD. Thankfully for a series like this, the emphasis is on the power of the word, rather than the amazing clarity of the picture.

Overally, it’s a pretty nice set, especially for someone who’s a word geek and/or passionate about literature. It might not be in-depth enough for an English scholar, but for everyone else, this is worthwhile look at the history of British/American verse.