The Sleeping Lord

David Jones's unique position in the poetry of our time was established by two towering masterpieces, In Parenthesis and The Anathemata. T. S. Eliot wrote of In Parenthesis that he regarded it as a 'work of genius', while W. H. Auden described The Anathemata as 'very probably the finest long poem written in English this century'.

Modestly presented by the author himself as a collection of 'fragments', The Sleeping Lord continues the exploration of themes begun by its predecessors. Set mainly in different parts of the Roman Empire, either in the Holy Land or on the Celtic fringes, animated by Jones's Catholic faith and by his own experiences as a soldier, formidably erudite and of a visionary intensity, the book springs from a lifetime's concern with questions of history, culture and religion.