5 Poetry Collections to Read If You Love Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has been beloved for centuries and has inspired spinoffs in many genres—from multiple films to a miniseries and a graphic novel. Surprisingly, there’s yet to be a Pride and Prejudice-inspired poetry anthology, but there are plenty of collections that share similar language and themes. Keep living in your Austenian fantasy with these five poetry picks. 

The Poems of George Crabbe

Though less well-known today than many of his Romantic era peers, George Crabbe stood out as Jane Austen’s favorite poet. Written in rhyming couplets and possessing a satirical, storytelling bent, many of Crabbe’s poems read like lilting short stories, mirroring Austen’s novels in their ability to mix whimsy and playfulness with deep moral lessons. Crabbe also made characterization central to his poems, incorporating figures and archetypes readers would likely encounter in their own neighborhoods and daily lives. He depicted the rural English countryside and its people in his poems, settings Austen related to and recognized, and in which she based most of her novels. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Major Works

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was another of Jane Austen’s contemporaries, and classes on Romanticism often teach Austen’s novels in connection with Coleridge’s poems. Like Austen, Coleridge was passionate about using the vehicle of writing and literature to make larger, overarching arguments about English society and culture. This masterful anthology takes a look at both some of his most well-known and more niche works, gathering poems he wrote at every stage in his life. Austen fans and scholars likely enjoy researching the intricacies of her upbringing and personal life, and this anthology offers an opportunity to take a similar inside view into Coleridge. In addition to his more polished, finalized poems, Samuel Coleridge: The Major Works also incorporates the poet’s marginalia, notebook samples, and letters to reveal a wider understanding of his mind and work. 

The Romantic Poets

While George Crabbe and Samuel Taylor Coleridge provide a strong introduction, this The Romantic Poets anthology from Simon & Schuster is a true deep dive into the literary tradition and movement that surrounded Austen and informed her work. This volume contains six of the most prominent and remembered Romantic poets: Coleridge, William Wordsworth, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and William Blake. 

The Letters I Will Never Send by Isabella Dorta

Letters play a central role throughout Pride and Prejudice. This format is how Mrs. Bennett learns about Mr. Darcy’s arrival in the neighborhood at the beginning of the novel and how Mr. Darcy confesses his love to Elizabeth in one of the book’s most pivotal and widely quoted scenes. Isabella Dorta’s The Letters I Will Never Send popularizes and celebrates the vulnerability and catharsis of letter-writing for a new generation, with each poem in this book addressed to a specific person or moment in time. 

She Is Fierce: Brave, Bold, and Beautiful Poems by Women, edited by Ana Sampson

Do you think of Elizabeth Bennett as a feminist icon and have a coffee mug, candle, or T-shirt that reads Obstinate, headstrong girl? Then you’ll love this sweeping and empowering anthology that traces feminist themes in poetry across generations. From Emily Dickinson and Emily Brontë to Margaret Atwood and Maya Angelou, celebrate women’s impact on the genre and on literature’s ability to record and illuminate women’s histories and experiences. 

Looking for more poetry recs based on your favorite novels? Check out our poets to read based on your favorite works of fiction roundup, which has pairings for modern-day classics like The Handmaid’s Tale and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.