This two-volume boxed set, of Peter Porter covers 40 years of this poet’s work, since his first book was published in England in 1961. Since then 14 collections have followed, including (in Volume 1 1961-1981) the translations of “Martial”, and “The Cost of Seriousness” . “The Automatic Oracle” which won the Whitbread poetry prize is in Volume 2 (1984-1999), which concludes with “Both Ends Against the Middle”. Porter was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 2007, an honour only given to a maximum of ten living writers.