George Crabbe (1754-1832), one of the quieter voices in English literature, was born in Aldeburgh, on the coast of Suffolk, a place which he memorialized in his poem The Borough, which, with his Tales is his best-known work. A realist and a poet of remarkable powers, he has always been highly regarded by students of literature, and in the twentieth century his work afforded a theme for Benjamin Britten's original and most successful opera, Peter Grimes.

R. L. Brett, in this sympathetic study of Crabbe's life and work, analyses his power to arrest and please. Brett was Professor of English at the University of Hull.