Hughes, Ted – The Bell Bookshop

Iron Man Audio Book

Emma — Thu, 01 Aug 2097 00:00:00 +0000

Ted Hughes’ spine-chilling and mesmerizing tale is widely regarded as a modern classic. Mankind trembles before the destruction wrecked by the Iron Man as he devours tractors, fences and ploughs, until a terrifying monster from outer space threatensto destroy the planet, and their former enemy becomes their saviour.

The Coming of the Iron Man

Emma — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This gorgeous abridged edition brings The Iron Man to a picture book audience for the very first time! A landmark publication.

The Iron Man isn’t scary – he’s just very, very hungry . . .

It’s not until he starts chomping on fence posts and tractors that he comes to the attention of the angry farmers – who trap him in a hole with the help of a little boy called Hogarth.

Then Hogarth comes up with a new plan – it turns out that the scrap yard, with its metal bedsteads, broken down cars and old cookers is the perfect home for a hungry Iron Man.

Lupercal

Emma — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Lupercal was Ted Hughes’s second collection, containing some of his most brilliant animal poetry. It confirmed his reputation as a major talent in British poetry.

‘Hughes has found his own voice, created his own artistic world and has emerged as a poet of the first importance . . . What Ted Hughes has done is to take a limited, personal theme and, by an act of immensely assured poetic skill, has broadened it until it seems to touch upon nearly everything that concerns us.’ Al Alvarez, Observer, 27 March, 1960

In language that is by now utterly distinctive, the poems both describe and deliver a kind of psychic shock. Hughes’s singularity of vision provides a ready symbiosis between theme and subject – the brute survival instinct of ‘Hawk Roosting’ or ‘Pike’, for instance; the rapturous attention bestowed upon ‘An Otter’ or ‘The Bull Moses’; the pervasive legacy of human history that can be seen to saturate a Hughesian landscape.

Lupercal is as vital and urgent today as it was when it was first published, its edict, implicit in every poem: to wake up, to pay attention.

Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being

Emma — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This enthralling tour de force of literary criticism, unprecedented in Shakespeare studies for its scope and daring, is nothing less than an attempt to show the Complete Works – dramatic and poetic – as a single, tightly integrated, evolving organism. Hughes supports his thesis with erudition and a painstakingly close analysis of language, plots and characters. A multitude of dazzling insights, such as only one great poet can offer into the work of another, is generated in the process, and our entire understanding of Shakespeare, his art and imagination, is radically transformed.

‘[This] huge study of Shakespeare, more than ten years in the making, is an unprecedented act of critical witness.’ London Review of Books

The Iron Man

Emma — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Stunning illustrations by Chris Mould make this one of the most exciting editions of The Iron Man to be published.

The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff.
Where had he come from? Nobody knows.
How was he made? Nobody knows.

Mankind must put a stop to the dreadful destruction by the Iron Man and set a trap for him, but he cannot be kept down. Then, when a terrible monster from outer space threatens to lay waste to the planet, it is the Iron Man who finds a way to save the world.

‘Stunning.’ WRD Magazine

‘Whether you’re already a fan of this classic children’s story or a new reader, this wonderful new version is a real treat.’ BookTrust

‘Gripping . . a classic.’ Phillip Pullman

‘A visionary tale.’ Michael Morpurgo

‘One of the greatest of modern fairy tales.’ Observer

Crow

Emma — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This anniversary edition celebrates fifty years since the original publication of Crow (1970) – the vital, shape-shifting collection
by Ted Hughes. Its context, including the integral role of the American artist Leonard Baskin and the significance of Hughes’ own lived tragedies, is illuminated in a new foreword by Marina Warner, as is the influence of ancient forms, legends and beliefs. The result underscores the work’s rough music and organic energy, as we encounter the enigmatic, unforgettable, ‘hulking, metamorphic beast-bird’ itself.

‘These scraps, spoken by a crow, took poetry to a new beginning. They are the bones of poems – made of mere lines: rude, surreal, gleeful, desolate poems – which for all their bleakness transmit a flash of hope. I would exchange much of English literature for their dark courage.’ Alice Oswald

Iron Man

Emma — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A beautiful 50th Anniversary edition of The Iron Man, the bestselling classic by Ted Hughes, with the stunning original wood engravings from Andrew Davidson and an introduction by Michael Morpurgo.

The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff.
Where had he come from? Nobody knows.
How was he made? Nobody knows.

‘Gripping . . a classic.’ Phillip Pullman
‘A visionary tale.’ Michael Morpurgo
‘One of the greatest of modern fairy tales.’ Observer

Iron Woman

Emma — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A beautiful 25th anniversary edition of Ted Hughes’s The Iron Woman, the incredible sequel to The Iron Man, with the stunning original wood engravings from Andrew Davidson and a foreword by Michael Morpurgo.

The streaming shape reared . . . like a sudden wall of cliff, pouring cataracts of black mud and clotted, rooty lumps of reeds.

Mankind for has polluted the seas, lakes and rivers. The Iron Woman has come to take revenge.
Lucy understands the Iron Woman’s rage and she too wants to save the water creatures from their painful deaths. But she also wants to save her town from total destruction.
She needs help. Who better to call on but Hogarth and the Iron Man . . . ?

A sequel and companion volume to Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man, this new, child-friendly setting will be treasured by a new generation of readers.

‘A beautiful new edition . . . wonderfully imagined, hugely challenging, modern myth.’ Carousel

How The Whale Became

Emma — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This collection of eleven evocative, accessible and funny stories for children of 5+ tells how a particular animal came to be as it is now. The Whale grew up in God’s vegetable patch but was banished to sea when he became too large and crushed all His carrots; the Polar Bear was lured to the North Pole by the other animals who were jealous that she always won the annual beauty contest; the Hare has asked the moon to marry him but can never stretch his ears high enough to hear her reply; the Bee must sip honey all day long to sweeten the bitter demon that runs through his veins . . . each story is a delight for reading alone or aloud.