Arguing that Hope's achievements have been neglected in the United States largely because of the poet's defiance of modernist and post-modernist trends, Darling explores the principal themes in Hope's poetry, noting that many of the issues of concern to today's younger poets - a return to narrative, the discursive mode, and traditional form, for instance - have long been apparent in Hope's poetry and criticism.

In an illuminating introduction, Darling provides a biographical sketch of his subject, treating Hope's years at Oxford (where he studied under C. L. Wrenn, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis), his criticism of the Jindyworobak and pseudo-modernist movements, being mentored by the poet James McAuley (then Hope's student), and his encounters with Australia's harsh antiobscenity laws.

A probing chapter on the Australian literary tradition helps readers understand the significance of landscape and ecological imagery in Hope's verse; additional chapters address satiric, grotesque, heroic, mythic, and other elements in the poet's works. A spirited contribution to the study of twentieth-century English literature, A. D. Hope is well suited for college and graduate courses and will be welcomed by scholars and general readers.